


Through The Nightmare

by Espernyan



Series: Ophelia's Yet Unnamed Bloodborne Series [3]
Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Complete, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Introspection, Lesbian Character, Making Love, Maria is very supportive and understanding, Non-Explicit Sex, Now I have to change the tags because 'a few times' was not preparing for the future, Ophe dies a few times, Ophe has a lot of problems tbh, Ophelia doesn't actually know how old she is, Ophelia probably doubles her death counter, Polyamorous Character, Self-Esteem Issues, Some Maria PoV, Wholesome Lesbian Stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-12 07:44:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 24,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18006710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Espernyan/pseuds/Espernyan
Summary: As promised, Ophelia ventures into the Hunter's Nightmare.Against all odds, she therein finds the support she needs to be strong.But it seems the Curse -- the tragedy she lamented so -- may be twofold in source.(This one's a long'un, but with a lot of wholesome lesbian stuff. I'm sure you'll not begrudge me that.)





	1. The Research Hall

The ascent through the Research Hall had been a blur.

Everything after the surgical altar elevator had, really. The twisting, turning staircase, the… patients, the whimpering and wailing, the cries for forgiveness, the begging for death. The Saint. Gods, the _saint_.

She was a patient, too, Adeline. A patient of the Research Hall, which meant she a swollen, enlarged, cloth-wrapped head. A fluid head. Malleable, ever-shifting. Wobbly and unsteady. They moved like Ophelia’s stomach felt when she looked upon them. Many of the patients were mad. Dirty gowns and bony, gnarled limbs, motivated to the attack by whatever impossible structure their central nervous system had become.

The wholesale slaughter of madmen was, of course, nothing new to the so-called 'Good Hunter'. Cutting down madmen in droves had been her first real foray into the Hunt.

But these people – former people? No, people, still. Not like the scourge victims, whose minds had been turned to mush by the plague of beasts; these pitiable creatures had had their brains literally, physically turned to mush. There was little left of them, but it was more than the simple, animalistic huntsmen had. Ophelia had seen patients tending to lumenflowers here and there, employing basic tactics – and, of course, some of them spoke. Calling out to a ‘Lady Maria’.

Adeline was even coherent. Or, had been. She, too, had asked after this Lady – what that said about this person, Ophelia didn’t know, but she was sure it had to be a great story.

It was an odd sort of feeling, being impressed by rudimentary displays of Human intelligence from…

Prey?

They weren’t beasts, and any denomination she could give them… it wouldn’t convey the proper respect.

They were prey.

Seeing prey display rudimentary Human intelligence was peculiar, almost exciting.

A patient had made clear his intention to fight her, but had been unwilling to step through the doorway between himself and Ophe, to the point that he actually took baby steps back and forth and stalled there.

It had actually caught her attention enough that she’d taken a second to realize the fellow was trying to goad her into rushing him, thereby bringing her into an ambush.

She had instead baited him out, cut him down, and cut his rushing friend down straight after, but it still impressed her.

In fact, it made enough of an impression on her that she had rushed through the doorway just to be certain she was clear of any flanking maneuvers, charging for a foe situated before a stairwell at the far end of the room. She cleared the doorway just fine, but grenadiers from an overlooking portion of the room – which was where the staircase led, actually – had pelted her with bottles of white blood (or whatever that poisonous ichor was) in the same moment as a patient had begun pummeling her.

She had died, there, and awoken at the lamp by the altar.

Ophelia had been killed because a couple of madmen had psyched her out.

That had almost been stand-out enough to take her mind off of the insane laughing and wailing that filled the hall.

There had been a blood-addled Church Hunter, swathed in appropriate black garb and lurking by a detached blob-head. He had been less wily than the mad patients. She had pegged him with a few throwing knives, and, with no route by which he might reach her, he had charged at her and plummeted however-many stories to his death.

She didn’t know why she was so surprised, really. A cleric of the Healing Church… even taking into account her fondness for such things – she figured she must have been very religious before the Hunt – it seemed to her like preaching scripture you didn’t understand was incredibly foolish.

Stupid, even.

… There had been a Saint. Ophelia couldn’t remember much, but- she had venerated a Saint, before. A woman death could not touch.

A true hero. Brought low time and time again, but unwilling or unable to be driven into the earth, where she might find peace.

The Hunter had idolized this woman, in another life. Taken heart from the stories about her.

It was all so vague in her mind. Foggy.

The Saint had been kind and courageous, unwavering in her faith, and of adamant will. She had been unbreakable. A bulwark against corruption and evil.

Ophelia couldn’t be like her. She knew that. How could she be devout when she couldn’t remember what her faith even was? How could she ward against corruption a city that had fallen to it before she had ever entered the picture? How could her will be strong when she had no reason to be? How could she be compassionate and brave when the only path she could traverse was steeped in slaughter and nothing else? How could she be unbreakable when she was already broken?

She couldn’t worship a god she didn’t know, but she could keep her faith in humanity. She couldn’t protect Yharnam, but she could protect what little of the city survived. Her will could be strong because she was determined to make it so, and her drive? She would strive to emulate that Saint. Brave and compassionate – she needn’t change in that regard, she realized.

And being unbreakable? That was simple. She merely needed to refuse to _stay_ broken.

Maybe she was just a soldier. Just a Hunter. Just a girl.

If that was the case, who would stop her? Who would strive to be a ray of hope during this night unending, if not her?

Nobody.

Ophelia rose to her feet. She had been sitting on her knees, her Moonlight across her lap, in a little out-of-the-way alcove – the Research Hall had a surprising number of them, actually. She stepped out and onto the balcony proper, sweeping her gaze across the balconies on the far side of the massive chamber built around the revolving stairwell.

She’d have to be confident, now. Outwardly. Well- she’d have to try, anyways.

Her eyes settled on the room she was looking for – the darkened chamber where three patients laid in agony, crying out for death or help or forgiveness.

The Hunter had retched over the railing out of sheer emotional stress. Strongly considered shooting herself, too, but death offered her no release, and she had recognized then that it was merely a desire for some form of catharsis.

No, there was no solace to be sought, not for Ophelia. She would light up this darkest of days even if it meant using her bones as kindling, and even then she would rise again. No matter how many times she was cast down. She had to, and she would.

As she stepped into the darkened room, the man cried out again, begging for death. She took his hand, stroking his desiccated knuckles with her thumb. His panicked, anguished cries were quelled, and he calmed considerably.

“Please.” He said.

Ophelia nodded and stood, drawing her sword. “May you be free from this nightmare and every other,” she murmured, and drove the holy blade through his heart.

 

 

* * *

 

Simon had arrived sometime after Ophelia’s last fatal slip.

That had been before she’d raised the staircase. The Hunter had fallen from – more ‘sprung from’, really – the rafters at the very top of the research center; a carrion crow had descended before her from on high. She had seen it perched above and known it would swoop down to attack her, which made all the more embarrassing the fact that she had quick-stepped at a shallow angle off to the right of directly aft – wanting to give herself an advantage in spacing – and landed directly upon thin air, whereupon she had plummeted to her death. Her last utterance before meeting the floor more intimately than mere men were meant to had been, “ _Fuck_!”

She’d felt bad about her language when she’d arisen at the lantern by the altar-elevator, but _gods_ did she hate falling like that.

Simon hadn’t been present, then.

When she next returned to the lamp, after raising the stairs, setting her heart on heroism, and granting the suffering patients Moonlight’s mercy, Simon was there.

He leaned against the tiled wall to the right of the short stairway which lead from the lamp’s landing at the top of the elevator to the lowermost floor of the Research Hall, disheveled and clad in the same tattered garb as Ophelia had seen him wearing in the hall that cut back to the Nightmare’s rendition of Oedon Chapel.

The man made Ophelia uncomfortable. His overlarge, swooping collar and grungy lapels, his burlap cowl, the sullied bandages about his head, which covered his eyes and harkened back to those who had succumbed to the Scourge of the Beast and hid their eyes to conceal their tell-tale collapsed pupils. His goatee. His long, grimy fingers.

“Oh, hello.” He said, gesturing broadly with one arm, indicating the Research Hall behind him. “Not a pretty sight, is it? The true face of the blood-worshiping, beast-purging Healing Church – but that’s not all. You seek the secrets held by the Nightmare, do you not?”

He didn’t wait for an answer.

“Then here’s what you must do. Climb the Astral Clocktower… and kill Maria. She hides the _real_ secret...”

Ophelia shuddered and went on her way, trying to put the strange man out of her mind.

Trying to remember what it is he reminded her of – she knew he had seen his like before, but… beyond that, everything was foggy.

Regardless, one thing was certain: Ophelia did not trust that man.


	2. A Break in the Lumenwood Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After dealing with the Living Failures, Ophe sits down in the open-air garden and has herself a rest and a think.

More big blue aliens were met with silvered steel and crackling lightning; Ophelia had felled what had seemed like a dozen clumsy ‘Living Failures’, dodging magics of the abyssal cosmos and hacking at spindly Kin limbs until all that stood amongst the lumenflowers were Ophelia and the lumenwood.

The Hunter’s chest heaved, her throat was raw, and she was drenched in blood and sweat. Worse, she had only a handful of blood vials left.

The battle with the Living Failures had been long. Minutes long. Minutes of running and slashing and dodging and blood magic. It was exhausting, and Ophelia could feel broad, dark bruises blossoming all over her body.

_Did deciding to be a hero come with painkillers? No? Damn._

Ophe checked over her equipment, lit the lamp the Failures’ defeat had revealed, and tried the key she’d snatched from one of the Kin creatures in the colossal double-doors leading into the clock tower.

Why there was an open-air terrace full of Yharnamite sunflowers – and a network of lumenflowers that had grown together to form an odd, but pleasant, dancing tree(?) sort of structure – between the Research Hall and the Astral Clocktower, Ophe wasn’t certain.

It was certainly a nice touch, but there was another lumenflower garden lower down, and it was bigger. Though she had also found an eyeball that shot fireballs down there, so maybe avoiding that neck of the woods wasn’t such a bad idea.

The lock clunked open, and she made a little happy noise in the back of her throat.

It wasn’t very heroic, but she didn’t have to _seem_ heroic to be a hero, right? Right.

She gave the doors a push, just to test them, and her tired muscles ached in protest. The great doors were heavy, but she was confident she could open them, just- after a bit of a rest.

Sitting with the happy dancing lumenwood, she looked out into the Nightmare’s sky, hanging overhead. A roiling mess of ailing gray clouds, marked occasionally with undertones of blue, green, and red. Light seeped through here and there, though – golden and magnificent. The light of the sun, clearly, only… the sun was there, too, or some equivalent thereof.

A nearly-round puncture in the fabric of the Nightmare, its edges imperfect and tattered, served as this realm’s ‘sun’, though Ophelia had no difficulty gazing at it – of course, she did not gaze overlong, knowing as she did that the sun could damage one’s eyes without causing pain.

No, the hole was not a celestial body, but a rent in the sky, though brighten the world it did. A somehow sickly golden light streamed through it – or from it. It being the sun was still a possibility, just not an idea Ophelia herself placed much stock in.

This Dream was corrupted. Colored by pain and suffering, perhaps. And yet… Ophelia found some comfort in it. Not as much as in the Hunter’s Dream, but… it was better than Yharnam. Yharnam was bleeding to death; the Hunter’s Nightmare was beyond such things.

Above them – quite literally, she expected.

She let Wiggles and Legs out of her breast pockets and placed them on the ground, allowing them to roam free about the queer flowers.

Wiggles seemed to eye Ophelia as if she somehow belonged amongst these flowers, but the pearly little slug was just being a silly lass. That, or she was looking at something Ophelia was wearing. The body language of small celestial slugs could be _awfully_ hard to read at times.

Legs wriggled over to her, as if to share idle gossip, and the Hunter watched them as she relaxed, blissfully unaware as Wiggles informed Legs that, yes, their green-and-gray friend _did_ flirt with just about every woman she met, and that, no, the girl appeared to have no awareness of that fact.

When Legs suggested that this was cute, Wiggles eyed the cosmic bug the way only a disapproving older woman can.

Wiggles pointed out that everyone who liked Ophelia, romantically or not, seemed to suffer inordinately.

With a dismissive wave of his pseudo-chelicerae ( _mandibles_ , Ophelia, not everything is a spider), Legs argued that correlation did not imply causation.

This continued for some time.

Meanwhile, and on something of a relevant note, Ophe pondered the _real_ Eldritch Truth: why had Arianna kissed her, back at the chapel?

She had always been very sweet to the Hunter, but… that hadn’t been a friendly smooch, but a _kiss_. A real one. A very nice one.

Clearly Arianna fancied her, and she’d make a liar of herself if she tried to deny that the feeling was mutual, but-

Gods, damn it all.

Did Arianna consider Iosefka out of the picture – as good as dead – or did she simply not care? Was the kiss a sort of… declaration of intent, or had it been a simple display of affection, perhaps gratitude?

Of all the muddled feelings she had, there was one which the moon-scented hunter was certain of: she didn’t want to be kissed out of gratitude. Not unless there was some kind of love behind it, romantic or otherwise. Iosefka had kissed her as thanks a few times, when she’d brought the doctor this or that, or cheered her up, but they had been courting one another.

No. If Arianna had kissed her, Ophelia wanted it to be something morethan mere gratitude.

Did that make her promiscuous? Uncouth?

Loving other women was fine – a little unusual, perhaps, but not _improper_. But the idea of ‘loving women’ was– they hadn’t meant wom _en_ , but _a_ wom _an._ You were meant to pick one who you rather liked, and pursue her properly, and maybe fall in love – then marry and live your lives together, maybe adopt a few children.

You weren’t supposed to let other women kiss you while the woman who had held you in her arms until you cried yourself to sleep was comatose.

Yet Ophelia had. Arianna kissed her, and…

Was she broken?

Something had to be wrong with her, right?

Maybe she’d ask Gehrman about this. He seemed wise. Failing that, Eileen, though she knew the Crow would tease her for it.

Especially because, now that she’d thought of her mentor, Ophelia realized that she rather fancied _her_ , too. Of course she did.

She forced herself to take a deep breath and calm down. Maybe this sort of thing happened sometimes. Maybe the old man could help. Maybe she was prone to taking any opportunity she found to beat herself up.

Yes, she would talk to Gehrman, and he could tell her if she was a horrible person or not. Unless he wasn’t there, but he’d been about more, lately. Probably wasn’t used to having anything to do.

For now, though, the Hunter rose to her feet. The two phantasms did little dances, and she bent over to let them crawl into her hands so she could deposit them into her breast pockets, as usual.

Sure, she was hurt and down to three vials of blessed healing liquid, four if she included the vial of Adeline’s blood, but, really, what’s the worst that could lurk behind that big door?


	3. The Astral Clocktower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Lady Maria wakes up to rather a strange situation.

The Lady Maria woke to the sensation of a small hand pressing on her thigh. Not child-small, but short woman ‘small.’ The only sound is that of her own blood, dripping from her hand into a puddle on the floorboards.

Before she could stir from her position – sprawled out, dead, in her chair – there was a sting in her thigh, followed by a warm, tingling rush of vigor. Blood?

The woman-- no, the _girl’s_ voice was frantic; she muttered something to herself, anxious, fearful. Something like, ‘No, not again.’

She sounded young, too young to be wearing the wide-brimmed hat of a Hunter of Beasts, injecting a corpse with healing blood and despairing at the death of another… comrade? Innocent, perhaps.

The girl could think Maria innocent. Perhaps she thought everyone in this Hunter’s Nightmare innocent. Not realizing that they had come here because they had gone blood-addled, souls overripe and swollen with bloodlust. She herself clearly didn’t belong-- unless, perhaps, she was mad. She could just be mad.

Another needle’s-prick.

_Go away, girl!_

Fingers pressed into her thigh- was the girl groping her? Gods, what-

_Tha-thump._

She’d checked Maria’s pulse.

Maria’s heart was beating.

… Had it been doing that before? She supposed it didn’t matter-

A hand on her shoulder, shaking her. A disappointed sigh. The girl let go, and Maria snatched her wrist as quickly as a viper strikes, pulling the girl down and towards her, until they were face to face, eye to eye.

Tears welled up in the girl’s green eyes. She didn’t scream – Maria had half-expected her to – she just looked hurt.

“A corpse,” said Maria, “should be left well alone...”

Something dangerous flashed in the girl’s eyes, between leather mask and Hunter’s hat, and Maria caught a meaner left hook than she’d expected such a stringy little girl could deliver. Perhaps this fool was left-handed.

“Don’t you dare say that to me,” the girl spat, her voice quavering with sullen rage. “Not when you’re alive and _she’s-_ ”

The fire seemed to leave the girl’s eyes in the span of a breath. She fell to her knees, and Maria snatched the hat from her head.

A nasty, dark purple bruise covered part of the right side of her face, all the way back to her ear. The girl’s wavy locks were soaked through with sweat and splattered with blood. A hair ornament stood out brilliantly against her grayish hair- _wait_.

Maria recognized that ornament.

She knew it well. In fact, she was wearing it herself.

“Where did you get this, child?”

The bruised Hunter’s eyes scrunched up at the edges in anger. “I’m not a child.”

“Then share a glass of wine with me.”

The Hunter almost rose to that – almost replied, _‘I’m not old enough!’_ like any good little girl would. But she stopped herself. Instead, she said, “I would be delighted, miss...”

“Maria.”

Recognition. Finally- and then the hurt again.

“Adeline was your-”

Maria’s heart hurt. How many times did she have to stop that wretched organ? “ _Was_?”

The girl turned her head in shame. “She had her revelation,” she answered, as if that explained everything.

In her defense- it explained enough.

The two were quiet for a moment. “The hair ornament, where did you get it?”

The Hunter looked up at her strangely. “The- the abandoned old Hunter’s Workshop.” She paused. “You’re dead, aren’t you? Gehrman’s doll looks just like you, you have the same accent, the same- the same hair, the same height...”

The girl went pale, eyes wide, and pulled a bone out of her pocket. “This is what you meant, isn’t it? When you called yourself a corpse. Gehrman made a doll in your likeness but she lives in the Dream… how is that possible?”

Maria was still stuck on ‘abandoned old Hunter’s Workshop’.

“What year is it?” She asked.

“I don’t know,” the girl replied. “Everyone’s either dead, mad, a beast, or too afraid to tell me much of anything. The… four? Who aren’t… I couldn’t bear to press them for answers.”

Maria was incredulous. “ _Four_?”

The tiny woman flinched as if Maria had struck her with the flat of a sword. “Iosefka’s alive, but she won’t wake up.”

For the first time in a very, very long time, Maria’s face softened. “Was she your sister, good Hunter?”

The girl sputtered, her face above her leather mask turning a lovely shade of pink. Maria understood.

“Ah. Your lover, then.”

More sputtering, but the girl nodded. Eventually, she calmed enough to ask, “Was Adeline yours?”

The Lady hesitated. “No, but...”

“But she might have been, had she not been so dedicated to slowly killing herself?”

Maria looked into the girl’s eyes again. “The Yharnam you have seen is truly lost, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “And I’m the only sane Hunter left.”

“Truly?” Maria’s eyebrows arched upwards.

“Yes. Eileen’s retired, Gehrman is old and dead and adream and apparently some kind of weirdo, and…” Her face fell further. Further, even, than it had when she had her doll revelation. “I’m sure Alfred has gone and driven himself mad. Gascoigne turned, Henryk went mad, the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst attacked Eileen… all the other living Hunters I’ve met have tried to eviscerate me on sight.” She paused. “And most – maybe all? Were Church Hunters, come to think of it.”

Silence again.

“ _Gods_ , I- I really am the only one left.”

The Hunter was crying again. Maria grimaced, hoisted her by her collar. “Come, little Hunter. You need a drink more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ophe really did need a drink, as it turns out.
> 
> No matter what universe she's in, she always gets drunk and charms some large woman's pants off eventually.


	4. A Drink in the Astral Clocktower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ladies share a drink.

Ophelia liked wine. Her head was abuzz, this Lady lady was nice and pretty and _sane_ , and she had a pretty accent that made Ophe’s stomach feel funny, and when she stood up Ophelia felt like maybe being short wasn’t so bad if girls could be this tall, and-

She told Maria everything. _Everything_. Well and truly spilled her guts. She’d even asked, once, if Maria would literally spill her guts. Maria had said no. Ophe had pouted, but the Lady hadn’t changed her mind. How cool was that?

Everyone else tried to put her out of her misery without even asking!

The Hunter giggled at her own thoughts, earning herself a strange look from her new favorite Nightmare Person. Simon still hadn’t managed to take second place.

Maria had said something that had sounded very profound when Ophe had asked about lov- about courting too many people, but she couldn’t remember it for the life of her.

“This isn’t blood, is it?” She slurred. “The… the wine, I mean.”

Maria laughed, steely gray eyes twinkling with amusement. “No, little Hunter, it is not.”

The so-called little Hunter let out a relieved sigh. “Gods, I could kiss you right now.”

“You could,” the pretty lady agreed. She really was. Pretty, that is. Her alabaster skin, her gray hair – it _worked_ on the Lady, Ophe had decided.

She… she was good.

It occurred to Ophelia for the first time that she truly could kiss this woman.

There was something wrong with her- and she must have said that aloud, because Maria made a face, shot her an intense look of… some sort. Expressions were a little hard.

“The only thing wrong with you, Ophelia, is that someone beat into your head that something is wrong with you.”

Ophelia cast her gaze downwards guiltily- whimpered a pitiful, “I’m sorry.”

“Do not be.”

Maria grabbed her chin and kissed her.

Ophelia felt more comfortable than she had trekking through that river of blood. Actual, literal blood– the runoff from Ludwig’s chamber, the huge room lined with mounds of fleshless, moaning bodies. What the fact that that was a valid comparison said about her, she didn’t know.

She kissed Maria back. Threw her arms around the taller woman’s neck.

Was this really okay?

She was kissing a dead woman.

Then again- were there any other kind, anymore?

She’d sing the Lady a lullaby if she so desired. In fact, Ophelia thought she might do that anyways.

It had been a long time since she’d been able to sing. She knew she had been taught to, but why? It must have been some sort of religious training; all the songs she knew were hymns, each laden with words that had no meaning she knew of. Her favorite had been the ‘Hymn of the Gilded Lily,’ which seemed very much like it was about two women falling in love.

Real mystery why she liked that one, wasn’t it?

…

Maria wrapped Ophelia up in her arms, and Ophelia felt as if she _belonged_ there. Her heart sang just being held by this woman.

This dead woman.

The Hunter wondered if the people she’d left behind in the waking world wouldn’t be better off without her.

The very idea was folly, however. The night would not end if she failed to find the source of the Scourge – to tear it free from Yharnam’s breast like a cancer.

And, muddied feelings or not, the survivors in Oedon Chapel were the only thing even close to ‘family’ she had.

How many more times would she die for them? She wondered.

How many times could she die before she, too, came to consider herself a corpse?

She had been fortunate, Ophelia had. For her, deaths had been few and far between. Though that also made them shocking and horrific each. She hadn’t been desensitized to it.

Perhaps, when that happened, she would truly be dead?

Ophelia unclasped her crow’s-feather cloak. It was very warm in the clock-tower. Her whole body was warm. Maria, having been told of the significance of the garment, eased it off of the shorter woman reverently, folding it over carefully and separating from Ophelia momentarily to drape it over one of the many peculiar wooden structures lining the room’s longer sides.

She could kiss that woman, she thought.

Once again, she realized she truly could – and, when Maria returned to her, she did so, earning from the Lady a pleasant sort of squeak.

Adorable.

The two removed their coats and placed them together on the floor. They sat, and Maria began unbuttoning Ophelia’s blouse – there was curiosity burning in her eyes, and Ophelia didn’t ask.

When she revealed the shorter woman’s pale flesh, she frowned. She bore the deep, ugly scars that every Beast Hunter did. Wounds that had healed improperly, wounds that hadn’t been healed with blood, wounds self-inflicted… But they were _all_ wounds. The Lady’s brow knitted in confusion.

“You do not have any scars from when you were a child, Ophelia?”

Ophelia blinked. “I’m not certain I ever _was_ a child.”

Maria knew better than to poke and prod overmuch at that, and very conspicuously didn’t ask about the long cuts down Ophelia’s arm, but, as her fingers traced them, the Hunter explained, “Magic.”

“Ah.” There was a hint of apprehension in her voice, and Ophe moved to reassure her.

“If it doesn’t have a cost I understand, I don’t touch it.” The Hunter grinned, and Maria placed a kiss on one of the rather large bruises the Failures had given her, grimacing when Ophelia yelped a little.

She slipped the last blood vial from Ophelia’s pile of gear and pointedly administered it to the foolish Hunter, watching with some satisfaction as the woman’s bruises faded away almost completely. After checking on her beloved phantasms (again), Maria eased Ophe down onto the makeshift bedding, held her close, and stroked her hair.

Ophelia drifted off to sleep, untroubled and safe, and Maria hugged her just a little closer.

“Rest, now, good Hunter. When we rise, you will hunt beasts, and I-” She smiled to herself. “I will be here for you, to embolden your sickly spirit.”

It was most fortunate Ophelia hadn’t heard that, else she might never have forgiven old Gehrman.

Before sleep pulled her eyes closed, too, Maria realized she might have eviscerated this girl, had circumstances been different.

That sure would’ve made the cuddling awkward.

She nestled the green-eyed Hunter just that last little bit closer, once more keenly and abruptly aware of the beating of her cold, dead heart, and drifted off to a sleep free from Dreams and Nightmares, alike and different as they were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ophelia is as much of a lightweight as I am, poor thing.


	5. Conversation in the Hunter's Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ophelia talks to her newest girlfriend's sort-of dad.  
> It goes better than expected, really.

Ophelia’s next visit to Oedon Chapel had been… stilted. With Ebrietas, she could make small talk, bizarre as that may seem, but at the Chapel, she just administered medications, held Iosefka for a time, and filled Eileen in on what she’d done and what she intended to do.

Arianna and Eileen, of course, had teased the moon-scented Hunter about her little tryst with the Lady of the Astral Clocktower. Neither of them had acted as if she had been unfaithful, however, and Ophelia wasn’t sure what that meant.

Still, it had been uneventful.

In the Hunter’s Dream, however…

Gehrman was there, in his wheelchair, when she awoke on the cobbled-stones. The odd scythe she had entrusted to him was collapsed in his lap, its siderite blade gleaming in the pale moonlight. Beside him stood the Doll, who curtsied in greeting, the movement graceful and efficient.

Ophelia bowed at the waist in response, then smartly saluted Gehrman, right fist held over her heart.

“Sir,” she said, settling her gaze on the old man, the First Hunter, “I’ve kissed your daughter.”

Gehrman blinked. “...Hm?”

The Hunter reddened. “Maria, that is. In the Hunter’s Nightmare.”

The light of understanding flickered in his tired eyes. “Ah-ha.” He looked her over, stroked his stubbly chin in thought. “Yes, you _would_ be her type, wouldn't you, girl?”

Ophelia relaxed a little. He wasn’t upset. Why would he be? She wasn’t sure, but she had worried about it regardless. “It seems that way.” She offered a small smile with the words.

A fond chuckle escaped him. “Well, how is she, then?”

“By normal standards? She seems alright.” The Hunter paused, shifted beneath her protective garb and the leather belts and bands that criss-crossed her torso. “For a dead woman? Astonishingly well.”

“It warms these old bones to hear it. She always deserved better than what she got, Maria.” He sniffed at the air. “I can smell the lumenflowers in your hair, good Hunter. The scent lingers in hair in particular; use a little tomato juice an’ it’ll come right out.”

Ophelia brought a lock to her nose and gave it a smell. The old Hunter was right- the scent of lumenflowers hung heavy in her pale gray hair. It was a sweet fragrance, one that somehow felt like a… like a light syrup. Viscous and sticky, but in the way that warm honey is, in that it is very much less viscous and sticky than cold honey while still retaining those properties.

The scent _did_ recall honey in particular, though, and distinguished the species, based on what Ophe had read, from the common sunflower. That sunflowers and lumenflowers were related was readily apparent, though precisely how closely she couldn’t recall – had they been in separate but closely related genera, or were they simply different species? Regardless, the common sunflower was odorless, though there existed less common varieties which _were_ fragrant.

“Perhaps I’ll have to plant some.” She paused as a thought occurred to her. “Would tomatoes grow in the Dream?”

Grass, white lilies, and the great tree were the only plant life Ophelia had seen in the Hunter’s Dream, really, and only the flowers were distinct from the real Hunter’s Workshop, if her memory served her. And she didn’t get the idea that those ethereal lilies had grown naturally so much as been wrought, as (and when) the rest of the Hunter’s Dream had been.

The Old Hunter shrugged his gaunt shoulders, insofar as he even could, and said, “It’s possible, I suppose, but I doubt it.”

“That’s about what I thought, too, but I reckoned it couldn't hurt to ask.”

A shadow fell across Gehrman’s face as he dipped his chin. “Oh, Kind Hunter,” he sighed, “it can _always_ hurt to ask.”

Ophelia shuddered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gehrman: The Man! The Myth! The GRANDPA!


	6. A Night in the Astral Clocktower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After smiting The One Reborn, Ophelia returns to Maria and the Astral Clocktower.
> 
> The two become rather intimate.

When Ophelia returned to the Astral Clocktower, she returned heavily-laden with blankets and bedding. Maria stifled a laugh at the sight of the excessively-swathed Hunter, subsequently dodging the pillow hurled at her face.

“Welcome back, good Hunter.”

“I’d joke that they were out of caskets, but, frankly, Central Yharnam is at least three percent casket.”

She dropped the bundle of soft and warm things down onto the floorboards.

“How are your people?” Maria smiled softly as she rose from her chair.

“Eileen is still… saucy as ever. Arianna touched my backside. The Dweller is still upset about the Blood Moon, but okay, and the little girl is handling it better than all the rest of us by far.”

“And what of dear Iosefka?”

Ophelia shook her head, and the Old Hunter clicked her tongue, removing her feathered cap. “I am sure she will recover, little Hunter. Be patient – she sounds very much like she is worth the wait.”

At that, Ophe smiled, too. “She is. I wish you could meet her.”

Maria barked a proper laugh at that. “Ophelia, you are as resourceful as you are softhearted. I am certain you did not buy those blankets from the marketplace. If you decided you wished to see me freed… I expect it would be done.”

“… I guess I could ask Ebrietas about that, huh?”

“Indeed you could. Not many are odd enough to speak so fondly of a Great One.”

The Hunter’s cheeks flushed pink again. “She’s really _very_ sweet!”

“I believe you.” The taller woman wrapped her arms about Ophelia in greeting, a gesture which she reciprocated.

After a moment, Maria halfway relaxed their embrace. “Tell me, dear Hunter; what have you slain?”

“A… failed Great One, I think? Maybe? An amalgam of Human corpses.”

Maria made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat.

Ophelia snorted. “It wasn’t that bad, really. Disgusting, yes, but it died as easily as any other abomination. Lots of thrashing limbs, though. And bell-ringing maidens hurled fireballs upon any who attacked it. They died easily enough – it was the stench of the fiend that was really bothersome.”

“It sounds like quite the feat.”

“I think it might have explained all the empty caskets.”

“Ah.” Maria reeled the Hunter back in, giving her an affectionate squeeze. “And how have _you_ been, Ophelia?”

That gave Ophelia pause. “I’ve been thinking about you more than Iosefka, lately,” she admitted.

“Because I am able to walk and talk and comfort you. It is natural, good Hunter.” With a tender hand, Maria cupped Ophelia’s cheek. “Your heart still sings for her, too, does it not?”

Ophe answered without hesitation: “It does.”

“Then you have nothing to answer for.”

A devilish grin wormed its way onto her freckled face. “Not even for hitting you?”

Lady Maria blinked in surprise. “… I had forgotten about that.”

The Hunter’s hands slipped lower, ‘til they were about Maria’s waist. “How could I ever make it up to you, I wonder?”

“You’ve grown bold, little Hunter,” purred Maria. “Yet still so innocent.”

“Was deciding to end whatever god is the cause of all this suffering not bold?”

Maria stiffened. “How do you mean?”

Sensing her discomfort, Ophelia embraced the taller woman properly. “I told you, didn’t I? That after Alfred left, I looked up at the Blood Moon and realized that the descent of the Great Ones had been the source of… I don’t even _know_ how much pain and suffering.” She shook her head, buried it in Maria’s chest. “It’s cruel and insane, and I’ll stop it.”

“Ah. That is right- you came here in hopes of finding some sort of clue.”

Ophelia made a little noise in affirmation. “Instead, I found you, and the knowledge that… this place will do no more harm.”

Maria cocked her head. “Is that so?”

Ophelia simply said, “There are no other Hunters left. Not in this world.”

“Ophelia...”

The Hunter stood on her tip-toes and kissed her partner. “I would limit your self-ridicule, Maria, as you limit mine.” Maria nuzzled the top of her head, and she smiled. “In slaying Rom, I allowed the Blood Moon to descend upon Yharnam. That I did not know what I had wrought until after does not change the fact that I am at fault. Yet you do not blame me for it.”

Immediately, Maria replied, “How could I?”

Ophelia melted a little at that. “Gods, but you are good to me.” She cleared her throat. “In the same vein- I can infer that you did something to ‘earn’ your place, here, Maria. The scent of lumenflowers cannot mask that. But you are a light in my life, and the lives of the patients here, and I know you did not do whatever it was you did with anything but the best intentions.”

“Little Hunter-”

“How could I blame you, then?”

Rather abruptly, Ophelia realized she was on the floor. On the pile of bedding, more specifically. Maria was over top of her, her back arched, her hands on Ophelia’s wrists, pinning them. There was an intensity in Maria’s steely gaze that bade her not to move.

For a moment, they were still. Maria eased back. “… Put up your cloak,” she said, releasing her grip on the smaller Hunter, “I will arrange the bedding.”

Ophelia’s flesh was alight.

She scrambled upright and carefully removed her equipment and outerwear, and soon enough Maria was beside her, relieving herself of her outer layers as well – she had left her pistol by the bedding, as though she was going out of her way to prove herself a woman after Ophe’s own heart.

Softly, she asked, “This will be your first, will it not?”

“ _You_ will, yes.”

The Lady’s Alabaster skin was flushed; she shot Ophelia a sidelong glance. “You really are quite something.”

Ophelia shrugged out of heavy leather, shimmying out from under the weight of buckles and baldrics, belts and blades. She set her pistol aside- she’d leave that by the bed, just in case. “It’s not my fault you didn’t consider that you, Maria, will personally be my first-”

She was still a bit too embarrassed to say ‘lover’.

“Y-you know.”

Maria, who had already freed herself from all but her smallclothes, purred. “Oh, I know _very_ well.” She moved to help her more encumbered paramour. “You are sure you want to do this?”

The Hunter stopped to look her square in the eye. “Unquestionably certain.”

As she was unlacing her boots, Maria asked, “Are you afraid, kind Hunter?”

She thought about that for a moment. At length, she answered, “I am.”

One boot undone, on to the next.

“Eileen once told me – back when the sun still shone over Yharnam, when it was just my saw-sword, my pistol, and myself against the world – she said, ‘ _What’s wrong? A Hunter, unnerved by a few beasts?’_ She chuckled, then- you’d love Eileen, I think – and looked me in the eye with that mask of hers. She- she radiated calm composure. She said, _‘No matter. Without fear in our hearts, we’re little different from the beasts ourselves.’_ ”

With both boots unlaced and pulled free, Ophelia looked up at Maria, smiling broadly. “My heart’s racing, Maria.”

Maria, too, wore a smile, though hers was coy and playful. “Are you saying I intimidate you, Ophelia?”

“As a hawk must intimidate a rabbit, yes.”

A chuckle escaped Maria’s lips, light and airy. “Rabbits do not usually befriend Great Ones and slay others besides.”

“And hawks don’t usually woo rabbits, but– here we are, darling.”

Maria was a little taken aback. “You called me ‘darling’.”

“Ah- was that untoward of me?”

“No, only unprecedented.”

Ophelia slipped out of her trousers, locking eyes with Maria. “Shall I infer you’d like it if I used more terms of endearment, then?”

“Perhaps. I must wonder, however, how it is you are so unfazed asking such a thing when stripped down to your blouse and bloomers, but so prone to flushing and sputtering at the smallest things when clad in battle-dress?”

A noncommittal shrug was about the best Ophe could really offer. “I’m not certain.” She thought for a moment. “You’ve made me wonder, though, how Gehrman will react to-” she gestured rather vaguely between herself and Maria.

“To you having made love to the woman he raised as his own daughter?”

Ophelia flinched, then screwed up her face, nodding. “Yes, dear, _that_.”

Maria stifled a laugh. “Well,” she said, “you can worry about explaining what you’ve done _after_ you’ve done it.” She took the shorter woman’s hand and led her to their makeshift bed. “For what it’s worth, however, I cannot imagine Gehrman taking exception to our relationship… _advancing_.”

The tension eased from Ophelia’s shoulders, and Maria delighted in watching it do so. “That’s worth plenty, Maria.” She bowed her head gratefully.

A thought struck her, then. “Wait, I- I told you there were only… four? Sane people left, but that’s not true! Djura and his comrade are alive and well-” She quickly realized her mistake and cut herself off, only to continue, “-and free of the Blood Moon, actually. Suppose they’re not technically in Yharnam, then, are they?”

Maria pulled Ophelia close by their intertwined hands and kissed the silver-haired Hunter sweetly. She didn’t appear to mind Ophelia’s self-refutation in the least; if she did, she was a fantastic actress. “Djura is the retired Hunter who introduced you to the pommel of your own sword, yes?”

Ophe grinned in spite of herself. “The very same.”

“It makes me glad to hear that you have capable allies in the waking world.” Said Maria. It made her glad to see Ophelia excited, too, though she knew saying that would only make the girl self-conscious. She dropped to a knee, planting it in the inches-thick bedding, and twisted her body quickly, contracting her arm and all but throwing her Hunter to the ‘bed’.

Ophelia loosed a delighted squeal, her eyes squeezed shut as Maria pounced on her. They shared another kiss, and, when they parted, Maria placed a kiss on the pale flesh of Ophelia’s neck. She sank her teeth into the same spot, then, and elicited a gasp from the girl who spoke to gods.

The two pulled apart. Maria sat up on her knees above her less-experienced, supine lover, the sides of her knees just touching Ophelia’s hips, and Ophelia took in the sight that Maria was. She wore a lacy shirt and close-fitting breeches, Maria did – men’s underclothes, traditionally, but Maria had lived and hunted in a time when Gehrman, the First Hunter, had still been active on the Hunt. She had been, Ophelia expected, one of the first Hunters, and very likely the first woman to join the Hunt. It made sense, then, that her garb would have closely followed that of her fellows – who were, themselves, _fellows_.

That was one theory, at least. It was also possible that Maria had simply preferred the shirt and breeches to a blouse and bloomers. The attire certainly suited her, at least as far as Ophelia was concerned. Maria was a handsome woman, dashing and debonair, and she used that to great effect on the moonlit Hunter. The men’s-wear complimented her subtly but unmistakably feminine figure in a way that set butterflies aflutter in Ophe’s stomach, and when Maria began unbuttoning her shirt, it took Ophelia a moment to snap out of her reverie and follow suit.

Maria discarded her shirt, then helped Ophelia slip free of her blouse. Brassieres were cast aside, too, and then two pairs of knee-length underthings.

Hands roamed. The heat between their bodies grew, building up ‘til their shared warmth was hot, unbearably hot and slick with sweat and saliva. They gasped and panted, letting out heavy, heated breaths as they danced against one another, Ophelia loosing airy sighs and quiet whimpers, Maria throaty moans and husky whines.

They loved to and through a crescendo, and, though skilled Hunters both, were overcome by exhaustion such that they fell deeply and comfortably to sleep in each other’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Admittedly, I got really rather flustered about this.
> 
> You can post your 'LOVE CAN BLOOM' jokes if you wish; I shan't stop you.


	7. In Comes Simon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not a sitcom; it's rather serious, actually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Simon, you're late!

Ophelia awoke to the sound of creaking floorboards. Her groggy mind thought it must have been Maria for a moment, until it registered that she was in Maria’s arms, and Maria in hers.

The realization cast the haze from her mind in an instant, leaving her alert, her senses sharp and her thoughts clear.

A boot-fall. Slow, cautious. Creeping towards them.

Ophelia decided to address them. Worst-case, she’d go for either her pistol or Maria’s-- and hope her voice was enough to wake her sweetly-sleeping lover.

“You wouldn’t be fool enough to try and sneak up on a Hunter, would you, stranger? Surely you know you aren’t half as quiet as a beast.”

She felt Maria wake in her arms, though the taller woman laid still, feigning sleep.

“And here I thought you’d lost your nerve.” The voice was unmistakable – Simon. “Tell me, girl – do you know why Hunters are drawn to this Nightmare?”

Ophelia rolled over to face him. That peculiar bow-blade of his was in his hands, held at a low ready – he had an all-metal arrow nocked. “Because it sprouted from their very misdeeds,” he continued, “things that _some_ would rather keep secret.” He shook his head. “It’s high time someone exposed the whole charade.”

“Exposed it to _whom_?” Ophelia demanded. “It’s clear you’ve not been to Yharnam in a long, long time, Simon, because there isn’t anyone left to expose anything to. The Healing Church? Lost to a man, by death or by Scourge.” She paused. “No, that’s not true – not to a man. There are two left. Adella… and _you_.”

Maria gave the Hunter’s midsection a reassuring squeeze.

“So, Simon, proud Hunter of the Church – what is it you hope to accomplish?”

Even beneath the grime and the blindfold, surprise was evident on the man’s face.

“Oh, come, now – I know an inquisitor when I see one.” There was an edge to Ophelia’s voice that prompted Maria to whisper soothing words in her ear.

He chewed his lip, regarded her carefully. At length, he answered, “I wish to bring an end to this. We hunters shouldn’t have to bear the weight of our forbears’ sins.” He shot Maria a dirty look, and Ophe wondered if he realized just whose girlfriend he was glaring at.

Ophelia could shoot fireballs from her eye, after all.

“Even were you to kill whoever’s hosting it, this Nightmare would persist. The Nightmare Frontier didn’t dissolve when I struck Amygdala down.”

“But what of the curse?”

Ah.

Maria spoke up, resting her chin atop Ophelia’s head. “When the carcass of Kos washed ashore, we were sent to investigate at the behest of the scholars at Byrgenwerth.” She spoke quietly and deliberately, a very slight quaver in her voice.

Ophelia placed her hands over Maria’s, holding them where they met, just below the Hunter’s bellybutton.

“A child emerged from her, an infant Great One. We slew it. This Hunter’s Nightmare was born of its pain and sorrow, and serves to trap _it_ here as well. As for your curse-”

“That,” Ophelia said, her mind racing, “was Kos.”

She had heard the curse when she’d been transported to the Nightmare for the first time. A spiteful riposte from a dead goddess.

_“Curse the fiends – their children, too. And their children, forever, true.”_

Simon scratched his beard. “So- if the infant were to be put out of its misery, Kos would forgive us?”

“The curse may have been given shape by Mother Kos, but it is the sorrow of her Orphan which sustains the curse. Granting it mercy would end it.”

“But what would that _mean_?” Ophe frowned. “I’m the only Hunter left. Would this spare the people around me from any more undue misfortune? Or would it just mean I wouldn’t go blood-addled?”

Scowling, Simon replied, “Even if it meant you and only you would be spared from going mad and wandering this hell for all eternity, it would be worth it.”

“I have to agree, little Hunter.” Maria purred, placing a kiss on Ophelia’s silver-white hair.

“It would be worth it to spare the child from anymore suffering,” said the moon-scented Hunter, “but- do I not _deserve_ damnation?”

“No.” Simon answered, simply. He made eye contact with Maria. “I’ll leave whatever’s wrong with _her_ to you. We can discuss things further later, when you lot are less unclad.”

The harrowed man turned and left with no further ceremony.

…

“Why do you undervalue yourself so, little one?”

Ophelia didn’t answer that.

She didn’t _have_ an answer for that.

“It is alright,” said Maria, “to not be alright.”

The Hunter squeezed her, needy. “I don’t deserve this,” she whispered, her voice suddenly hoarse, her throat tightening.

“Oh, good Hunter. ‘ _Deserving_ ’ has nothing to do with it.”

Ophelia _mmph’d_ into her chest. “I feel like we haven’t even known one another very long.”

“-And you feel you rely upon me too much?” Maria giggled. “You are sweet, Ophelia. But we are in a Nightmare – a Nightmare I dwell within. A Dream in an already strange place. I am positive you have noticed yourself that the passage of time during the Hunt is… convoluted.” She pulled away from the moon-scented Hunter, enough to speak to her face. “Relations shift and obscure, dear one. I feel at once as if I have known you for minutes and months, yet neither is the truth.”

Ophelia’s… insight? Tickled. “ _Ah_.” She breathed. “When we are together, our worlds converge. When apart, our worlds are our own. Time passes as it will for each of us. Were I to leave to meet you at the River of Blood, and arrive there in nine hours, and you in three – we might well meet regardless, and, if we did, I would have felt the passage of my nine hours and you your three hours, and yet...”

Maria smiled fondly. “Ophelia, you are an exceptionally clever girl. I would accuse you of speaking madness, did it not ring so true.” Her expression grew more serious. “In dreams – of _every_ sort – and in Yharnam, the rules we think we know are no longer the rules. You understand this better than I, I should think. I- Gehrman always advised me not to think too hard about all this. He did not mean to insult my intelligence, you understand, but to protect my mind.”

She held Ophelia’s face in her hands and let her subconscious mind gloss over the faded, suspiciously-shaped birthmark on the younger woman’s cheek, even as the pad of her thumb drifted across it. “You are strong of mind, I know, but I beg you – do not delve too deeply. I could not bear to lose you to madness.”

A wry smile worked its way onto Ophelia’s face. “I’ll do my best not to go insane. I’ve got you, Ebrietas, Eileen – my feet will stay firmly planted on the ground.”

“Promise me?”

A hint of fear danced in Maria’s steely gray eyes.

“I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe he slept in?


	8. Exploring the Hunter's Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ophe ventures down the River of Blood, plunges the depths of that gore-stained cave, and battles a Hunter turned bestial.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even now, Ophelia seems to have some respect for the Healing Church, whether she realizes it or not. 
> 
> Fye, what a strange bird she must make.

Ophelia trudged down the River of Blood.

The bloodlickers, with their grotesque figures, overlong limbs, and colossal, distended red bellies, were a foe that understandably unsettled and intimidated her, but two thrusts from her most righteous of blades was enough to put any of them down in short order. She should have known they were unholy creatures, really.

The ‘sun’, such as it was in the Nightmare, shone down with relative intensity upon the Hunter, making her glad for the protection of her wide-brimmed hat. Yharnam hadn’t done much to prepare her for sunshine of any sort, for the night had been long, and the semi-darkness of a moonlit night had been both a comfort and an ally.

She remembered a time before she had set foot in the Nightmare, when she had so foolishly thought she knew what it was like to be well and truly _covered_ in blood.

How silly she’d been.

The River of Blood, as she’d settled on calling it, was more truthfully a stream – a creek, if one preferred – but it was deceptively deep in places, and from time to time she would lift her foot from ankle-deep ‘waters’ and place it back down in a hole which brought her knee-deep in ever-so-slightly-coagulated blood. The sensation of blood filling her boots was one she found distinctly _unpleasant_ – warm and wet and just enough more viscous than water to feel particularly disgusting as it seeped through socks and settled between toes.

Between killing bloodklickers and occasionally going surprise spelunking, Ophelia was entirely – legitimately entirely – soaked with blood by the time she stood before the craggy mouth of the cave at the lower end of the river.

Idly, she wondered how much more she weighed while soaked like this – the black feathers of her cloak, at least, shed most of the sanguine ichor. She shimmied a little beneath it, shaking red droplets free of the garment, and failed to stifle the laugh that came when she realized she was ruffling her feathers.

“What a strange bird I must make,” she mused.

A blood-drunk Hunter with rather a queer weapon – a cut-down, compact gatling gun, slung under his left arm – accosted her when she took the left turn into the cave.

The first prolonged burst of blood-and-quicksilver projectiles sent Ophelia to cover, but he had been overzealous and sprung his attack too early, and she ducked easily back into cover. When he’d stopped, she pressed the attack, closing to melee range and opening a rent in his torso. He lashed out at her with a weapon she couldn’t positively identify in the dark, and she put a bullet in his shoulder for the trouble, parrying him effectively and opening him for a visceral attack, an opportunity for a riposte which she capitalized on with aplomb.

The man was sent sprawling when she tore her gloved hand from his torso.

Whether it was a saw-cleaver or a saw-spear in his hand made no difference as he squeezed off another burst from his rotary gun before he’d even found his footing.

She shot him in the chest once more, just to interrupt his burst, and darted forwards, quick-stepping to close the distance.

The advantage was hers to press; he was overeager to use his favorite toy, and a second-rate duelist besides.

She cut him down with little trouble.

…

And nicked his cool gun.

_Obviously._

She wasn’t quite strong enough to use it, but she figured the Doll could help with that; it was a relatively near thing.

Maybe, if she found an arcane droplet gem, she could have a magical machine-gun? She wouldn’t hold out hope, but the idea was certainly exciting. Definitely something worth talking to Djura about.

She had longed for a so-called witch’s pistol for some time, but had yet to find a means of acquiring one. Perhaps she could find something deeper in the Labyrinth? She would ask Ebrietas, she supposed. If anyone knew more than Ophelia about matters of the arcane, it was the Daughter of the Cosmos.

A few beasts – the same Old Yharnam beasts as resided in the rest of the Nightmare, as well as, obviously, in Old Yharnam – lurked in a branch of the cave, including, notably, one of the cloaked beasts. Those, she had previously only seen in Old Yharnam itself; they certainly seemed to be native to the valley hamlet, but seeing one in the Nightmare?

 _That_ was interesting in and of itself.

More interesting was the Blood-Starved Beast which lurked deep in the belly of the gore-strewn, corpse-riddled cave.

She had put up something of a fight, even parrying a few of its blows with her pistol, but, in truth, her first trip had been rougher than previously stated, and it had overpowered her without much trouble.

She had come from the Nightmare Church, headed down and around the back, over and through the one-way ramp just beyond where the snail woman had fallen from the sky.

She stopped to pay her respects to the dainty, fallen creature, of course, and wondered what plane she must have fallen from, that it would be above this Hunter’s Nightmare – and so directly, too.

From there, she had traveled effectively the entire lower half of the river, striking down hunters and what seemed like a dozen bloodlickers, using phantasms and Hunter Tools alike, in coordination with the bursting thrusts of her magically-imbued guiding Moonlight, to fight her way to the caves.

It had been a much longer trek than her second, which had been when she’d discovered just how effectively her thrusts could put the horrid monsters down.

She had, understandably, been down to eight shots worth of quicksilver and two of blood when she’d entered the cave, and perhaps ten or twelve blood vials at most.

She had conquered all but the Blood-Starved Beast in that attempt; it hadn’t been the most efficient, but she felt it had been a suitably-valiant effort.

Her second attempt had been more expedient by design, and had started through the shortcut of the Nightmare’s Oedon Chapel, and had ended with her enhancing her trusty flamesprayer with bone marrow ash and hosing the flayed monstrosity with cleansing flame from a ridge above, being mindful not to get swept up in the act of purification.

Being purgation made manifest as all well and good, but she knew to restrain her zeal, lest it grow out of hand.

The beast had thrashed and wailed and raged and roared as it was doused in liquid flame, and she bade it a peaceful rest as it died.

…

A peculiar club laid at the back of its lair, one the Messengers told her was an ‘Amygdalan Arm’.

_Odd._

She had the little fellows spirit it away, as they had the gatling gun, and moved on.

As she stepped back into the River of Blood, she considered that this probably wasn’t the experience most people had when exploring their girlfriend’s place. It gave her a little pause, putting things into perspective that way. It was rather humbling, really, to realize she had things so easy.

All Ophelia had to worry about was death and dismemberment; she had no risk of running into, for example, Maria’s extremely muscular father on the way to the washroom at three in the morning on a Tuesday. Or, well, a Wednesday.

With that in mind, she headed into the partially-sunken copy of the darkened house she’d passed through many times back in Central Yharnam, wielding her beloved greatsword in two hands and cutting down the tainted huntsmen within with ease. Her exit was the far door, outside of which stood a small, open area, paved with tan stone. A few steps led up to a slightly higher platform, bordered with a wrought-iron fence, which in turn had a stairway leading to an area perhaps two meters up and to the right.

She took the steps and then the stairs, and found a bestial Hunter in wait.

He wielded the clawbones of some long-slain beast as though they were his own, and a capelet of long, ragged blue fur grew from his left shoulder.

_How fashionable._

For a moment, the two simply stared at one another, as if uncertain how to proceed. That moment passed, and he pounced like the beast he had clearly become, swiping and diving and doing a strange and markedly unnatural hop, after which he would hover for a split-second before rocketing towards the poor, green-eyed girl.

Initially, Ophe had held her own, opening the man with swipes of silvered steel here and there, but his erratic movements and overwhelming aggression were enough that he managed to force her down the stairs and round the handrail, whereupon he used his superior mobility to turn her in the direction of the sunken house.

In clearer terms, he had maneuvered her such that her back was to the wrought-iron fence, where he slashed at her furiously.

She had ducked and dodged through a fair portion of his flurry, but a misstep had let him make contact, his claws biting deep into her breast, splitting flesh and putting her completely off-balance. The blood thrown from her body by the claw’s follow-through was like a red smear on her vision.

Another blow landed, rending flesh, and her screams were cut short with a final sanguine spray as he tore out her throat.

It occurred to her, as she woke at the lamp, that she could use the Old Hunter’s Bone to potentially eke out a victory, but…

Even just thinking about her girlfriend’s bone felt really rather awkward.

Her second attempt, too, met with failure.

Maybe if she used the Beast Roar?

That was… it wasn’t-

Ophelia wasn’t overkeen on the idea. It was a forbidden Hunter Tool, a severed beast’s paw, used to channel the might of an undead darkbeast and unleash a great roar which could blast foes back.

She could use it to keep the bastard off of her.

Or, perhaps, she could try using the Fist of Gratia? It was little more than a hunk of iron with finger-holes in, but, supposedly, the Hunter Gratia had used it to great effect, pummeling beasts into submission.

She had found that on the corpse of a gigantic woman, here in the Nightmare- in one of the cells lining the hall between Ludwig’s corpse room and the… basement? Of the Research Hall.

She hadn’t used it much, at least not yet, but she got the idea, and Gratia had apparently been quite the heroic figure.

Ophelia didn’t have her brawn, and was perhaps a third the woman’s size, but it still couldn’t have felt particularly nice to be struck with, right?

…

After some deliberation, Ophe settled on using the Beast Roar.

It worked.

Moonlight had cut the scourge-ridden Hunter time and time again, and the forbidden tool’s roars had kept the foe on the defensive.

She finished him with a powerful sweep of the glowing greatsword, the arc of blue-green light it threw cutting the man as surely as the blade had but an instant later.

Ophelia placed a kiss on the spine of the bloodied blade and sent the Beast Roar away with the Messengers – she didn’t much want to keep it around.

In addition, a badge had fallen from the man-beast’s person as he had collapsed to the pavement, and she scooped it up – a Hunter’s badge depicting a hammer of the sort found in percussion guns. That, too, she sent with the Messengers. She didn’t want it, and they’d appreciate it more than she would anyways.

Admittedly, however, she had taken to carrying Maria’s bone around with her wherever she went. She didn’t try to pretend that this wasn’t a very odd thing to do, but it was a reminder of one of the women she loved, and, well – it gave her some modicum of strength.

…

Enough strength, perhaps, to go and discover Alfred’s fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moonlight's been rather quiet, lately, hasn't it?  
> Are you still at my side, O Holy Blade?  
> Of course- you've been there all along, after all, haven't you?  
> My guiding Moonlight.


	9. Nightmares, Such as They Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maria and Ophelia comfort one another, as lovers do, or ought to.
> 
> Then, during a discussion of some recreation, Maria hatches a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be warned, O reader: this chapter contains a bit of suicide-related talk.   
> Mention of a certain character's canonical fate, to be specific, and some contemplation (a short paragraph) from Maria on her and Ophelia's experiences with it.
> 
> Perhaps I'm not the best role model, but if you have thoughts of suicide, please visit https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ or call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255. If someone you know is, urge and encourage them to do the same, or find help in whatever way they might.   
> It's not worth it. There's almost certainly someone or several someones who love you -- or care for you deeply, if, like dear Ophelia, they're afraid to use the L-word and frighten people away -- and, if there isn't, which I very much doubt, there's always someone to love you. Someone you might meet tomorrow, next week, in twenty years -- who knows? -- whose life will brighten with every moment spent in your presence.   
> The world's full of wonderful people, and you, dear, are one of them, or else someone with the potential to become one of them.
> 
> Remember, darling,  
> a Hunter is never alone.

What seemed like several days had passed before Maria, dozing in her chair beneath the green-and-yellow shaft of light cast through the Clocktower’s face, was disturbed. Sharp gray eyes snapped open, her senses returning to her immediately and at full alertness, as she zeroed in on the sound of a footstep.

Her hopes that it might be her favorite white-freckled arcanist were dashed even before her eyes had finished resolving the prowling figure of Simon – Ophelia was certainly light on her feet in at least three ways, but Simon was well and truly lightfooted. She wondered if that meant he’d been caught on purpose when the two had first, and rather awkwardly, met.

An arrow was nocked in his peculiar bow-blade.

Somehow, she felt as if she were still asleep.

_“_ _Maria.”_

He said her name slowly, as though tasting it, carefully chewing each syllable. He must have found it wanting; his distaste was evident.

It didn’t take a mind-reader to understand what the man was contemplating.

“Are you truly so desperate to tease something further from the depths of this nightmare? Even if it means my murder…?”

The archer snorted. “ _Murder?_ After all the suffering you’ve caused? I’d call it-”

Simon stiffened as the flat of a blessed claymore’s silver blade was rested on his shoulder, its keen edge pressing just enough into his neck to remind him that magical swords have a funny way of staying really rather remarkably sharp.

“Hello, Simon.”

The archer sighed, defeated. “Hello, Ophelia.”

He lowered his bow, adding, “I wasn’t going to kill her.”

Maria had expected about as much, really. The man just wanted information. Still, Ophelia’s arrival was… reassuring. Maria had no doubt she could take the man, but even if he had attacked her and she had killed him – what might Ophelia think, walking in on such a scene?

Of course, Ophe would listen to her, believe her when she explained what had happened. But she knew – no, perhaps _feared_ – that such an incident would leave a niggling doubt in the back of the Little Hunter’s clever mind. The idea of that kindhearted girl fearing her... it touched a piece of ice to Maria’s veins.

Ophelia leaned in close to the stubbly man she held at sword’s-edge and spoke, low and dangerous. “Oh, I _assure you_ you weren’t.”

The edge to her voice suddenly seemed more dangerous than the blade, and the implication…

Maria shuddered.

“Have you any idea where I’ve just been?”

Very carefully – and understandably so – Simon shook his head. Maria watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.

_“_ _No?”_ Ophelia’s tone was… showy, almost mocking. “Why, I suppose I’ll just have to _tell_ you, then.” She shrugged, and Maria saw not her lover, but a Hunter. Her bearing was _Wrong_. She wanted so very badly to see the humanity of the mage, that strip of pale flesh between her wide-brimmed hat and her thick, leather mask. Desperately, she searched for it, squinting, peering, straining her eyes.

But, struggle as she might, the moon-scented Hunter’s pale face, wintry freckles, silvered brows, and brilliant green eyes were cast in shadow.

In those moments, Ophelia was obscure. Unseen in both the dreaming world and the horrible Nightmare Maria was so inextricably bound to.

“I went to the forsaken Castle Cainhurst in search of a friend of mine, a man called Alfred. The jolliest sort of fellow, eminently agreeable. An Executioner – probably the last of them. I found him, up in the throne room of Queen Annalise, ruler of the Vilebloods, great smear upon the- well. The throne, the floor, the walls-- just about everything, really. The smear upon my friend.”

There was a rueful tone to her voice. “He wore that stupid, trumpet-like golden helmet of his, wielded a great, spoked wooden wheel. His garb was stained pink, his holy shawl heavy with accursed, forbidden blood, such that it dripped upon the floor – such that it was a wonder it did not choke him...

“… Gold is a pure metal, you know. Doesn’t tarnish. Yet… the blood and brains upon that spiked helm of his felt a greater patina than I’ve ever seen elsewhere.”

“… Ophelia?” Worry clawed at Maria’s heart, the very same organ she had once thought dead, only to find it beating.

“He was cackling and howling, _reveling_ in his execution of a woman who, no matter how evil she might have been, could not harm anyone. Was she even evil? No- _is_. She yet lives, her flesh writhing, alive, upon her throne.” She shook her head, silver hair swishing, more lively than the woman herself seemed to be. “He was blood-addled. I took his helmet off – his eyes… He had always had wild eyes, but his pupils were mush, his irises collapsed.”

“You did your duty,” concluded Simon, “as the wearer of a crowfeather cape.”

Ophelia nodded soberly. “A Hunter of Hunters.”

“I’m sorry you had to experience that.”

“Thank you, Simon.”

Somehow, Maria felt as if she had been pinned to her chair.

“But we’re going to have a problem, you understand. See, I have an inkling of what it is you do – did, perhaps. You weren’t just a Church Hunter, but one disguised as a beggar. Operating in the dark. Dealing with victims before symptoms of the Scourge manifested. An inquisitor of the worst kind.”

She chuckled darkly. “But your cause was righteous, right?”

“Problem is, you wouldn’t know _righteous_ if it scored your neck.” Her voice was as icy-cold as a knife’s edge, sharp and deadly and _hard_ , steely and unyielding.

A thin rivulet of blood trickled from Simon’s neck down the blade of Ophelia’s beloved sword.

Maria realized she couldn’t move.

Someone had grabbed her shoulder.

Ophelia jerked the blade backwards, opening Simon’s throat and neck-

  


*** * ***

  


Maria awoke with a start.

She was in her chair. A gloved hand held her by the shoulder. A pair of worried green eyes searched her face, as if answers were etched into her alabaster skin.

“Maria?” Asked her lover’s voice, heavy with concern.

Maria blinked her bleary eyes, picking a white dot on Ophelia’s nose and focusing on it as best as she could, until, after a few moments, her vision finished sorting itself out.

“I-” She swallowed. “ _Little One?_ ”

A frown formed on the moon-scented Hunter’s face, a few gray locks tumbling in front of her eyes as she leaned forwards. “It’s me,” she said, adding, after a moment, “… Am I really so small?”

Maria wrapped her arms about Ophelia’s neck and dragged her down into a hug. “Ophelia,” she breathed, as if the utterance of her girlfriend’s name was itself a sigh of relief, and buried her face in hair which smelled of moonlight and lumenflowers.

Smiling wryly, she said, “Ah, and- you are quite small, yes.” It occurred to her that this might not be very reassuring, so she quickly appended, “But I am liking-” She flushed and cleared her throat. “You fit wonderfully into my arms, Ophelia, sweet Hunter.”

She reddened further when she realized Ophe was gaping at her. Clearing her throat, she asked, “What is wrong?”

The Hunter shook her head. “ _Gods_ , but you’re cute. And your accent… I could just _die_.”

Maria frowned before she had finished processing the words, but Ophelia, having realized she’d said something strange as she said it, clarified, “In a good way, I mean. Not like the usual way. _Ways._ ” She, too, cleared her throat. “What I’m saying is, if your accent was a woman I would have a third girlfriend.”

_Ah. She didn’t hate it. Thank goodness._

Feeling perhaps a bit spoiled, Maria allowed herself a small smile. “You are a strange girl, but… I clearly do not dislike that. Thank you.”

Ophelia hugged her back – seemingly having shifted her feet such that she didn’t expect she’d fall flat on her face if she returned the embrace – and said to Maria’s shoulder, “Are you alright? You seemed like you were having a bad dream.”

Maria hesitated to answer that. “I was,” she admitted, after a moment. “But I have a question for you.”

The Hunter nodded resolutely. “I’ll do my best to answer it, darling.”

“What would you like to do, after the Hunt? Is there something you wish to be?” She thought for a moment. “Perhaps a singer?”

Feeling the smaller woman pull away, Maria released her from her arms; Ophelia took a step back so they could speak face to face. She stared down at the palms of her gloved hands for a minute. There was a gentle pain in her eyes.

“I merely wish to be of use,” she finally said, raising her chin, meeting Maria’s gaze. “I was made for this, perhaps more literally than either of us could possibly understand – I have my suspicions.” She swallowed. Her jaw worked open and shut ever so slightly. “Wretched though it may sound, I know no other life. I am a Hunter. I cannot protect. I cannot save. I cannot even remember, no matter how much it seems I must.”

Ophelia looked away. “You may think it a cruel fate – I will not hold it against you. But it is mine. It is a weight I bear willingly, and one that does not trouble me overmuch.”

Something seemed to shift in Ophelia’s bearing, then.

Maria grabbed her by the collar, rose to her feet, and kissed her.

The Hunter wrapped her arms around Maria’s lower back. When Maria released her, she said, “You dreamed of me, didn’t you?”

Maria smiled, if a little ruefully. A small smile, accompanied by a brief chuckle. “I did.”

Blessedly, the expression seemed contagious. “And what terrible fate befell me, lovesome?”

“You killed Simon. Perhaps not in _cold_ blood, but it certainly felt like murder.”

Ophelia grimaced. “Had I gone blood-drunk?”

“No, I do not think so.” Maria noted that Ophelia’s expression didn’t drastically change at that. She hadn’t been prepared for that answer, had she?

… _No, certainly not._

“I’m sorry you had to see something like that, even if only in your dreams.” Ophelia pulled her close by the waist, bringing them belly-to-belly, nose-to-nose.

Was it normal, Maria wondered, to find such comfort in this Hunter’s arms? In her warmth, and the steady beating of her heart?

… It was a little fast, but she was a Hunter, and perhaps embracing in this way still made Ophelia’s heart race, just a bit? The idea brought a shade of a sly smile to Maria’s face. She set her forehead against her opposite’s.

Even through their clothing, Maria could feel the Hunter’s heartbeat. She hummed pleasedly, and Ophelia ran a hand rhythmically up and down her back.

“Tell me, Little One, what have you done since we last met?”

“I found Alfred,” said Ophelia, her face falling a mite. “His body, at the shrine where I first encountered him.”

“The loss of a friend and comrade… it is a feeling I can relate to, no matter how I might wish I could not.”

The hand stroking Maria’s back climbed higher, pausing to have its glove tugged free before its fingers were gently laced through her platinum blonde hair. “He’d killed himself, by all appearances,” said her lover, a hint of sorrow turning brilliant green eyes mournful, “I expect he did his duty, returned to Yharnam, and...”

Maria could fill in the blanks as well as Ophelia could. Perhaps he had found the emptiness that follows revenge. Perhaps he had intended to martyr himself. It could be he had felt the onset of the Scourge and decided to die Human. Maybe he felt he had failed to truly complete his duty, failed to really kill Annalise, and had decided upon death as the price of failure. Perhaps, with his duty now done, he was finished with the waking world – perhaps he simply wished to join his fallen comrades.

“Do not worry that I resent your friend, Ophe,” Maria said after the two had spent a time in quiet contemplation, “I have no love for Annalise, distant relation or no.”

Suicide was no stranger to Maria, and she knew – perhaps not for certain, but she ‘ _knew_ ’ – that Ophelia had experience with the topic, too. Contemplating it, perhaps even going through with it, albeit fruitlessly – the moon-scented Hunter’s connection to the Hunter’s Dream served as a bulwark against death, ever denying her peace.

She hoped her beloved Hunter would not need to worry about such things any longer.

“Ophelia,” said the one bound to the Nightmare, “would you like to spar? I have not swung a sword in a very long time.”

Ophe hummed thoughtfully. “That sounds lovely, Maria, darling.” She pressed a kiss to Maria’s bottom lip. I was thinking of asking Gehrman if he could fit my saw-sword into one of those great silver scabbard-blades that Ludwig’s ‘Holy Blades’ used – I could get a blunted copy of my Moonlight from the Messengers while I happened to be stopping by.”

“Ah. I hadn’t thought of that, my _Rakuyo_ -”

The Hunter winked. “ _You_ don’t need to worry about blunting your only sword, love. I’m functionally unkillable. A simple edge-guard or some armor would suffice, and worst case we can just accept the risk of you cutting me up here and there.”

The dismissive tone withered and died beneath Maria’s stern, reproachful glare. “I am not keen on spilling my lover’s blood.”

“Right, sorry.” Ophelia smiled sheepishly, rubbed the back of her head. “I’ll see what I can do in terms of making the blade safe without blunting it – if I can’t… I can buy one of those _Chikage_ s from the Messengers, if that would work?”

Maria considered this. It would be somewhat close, at least. It wouldn’t be the same as her Rakuyo, of course, but… her contemplation rewarded her with an idea. There was her... not quite her _real_ one, _that_ sword lay at the bottom of a well in the real version of that fishing hamlet – _the_ Fishing Hamlet, really, for no other could compare – but a copy of that real, original, discarded _Rakuyo_ had been transposed into the version of the Hamlet that had _itself_ been brought into the Hunter’s Nightmare, she could _feel_ it.

As far as the Nightmare was concerned, of course, Maria and her _Rakuyo_ were intrinsically linked – it was a fundamental part of her identity as one of the fiends who had taken part in the bloodshed that fateful day, after all. All she needed to do to have a _Rakuyo_ by her side was… well- she could will it to appear, but it also sprang to her hand when she ‘needed’ it. The weapon simply made itself convenient to the extreme.

Of course, the two-bladed trick weapon she could summon would always be keen as a razor, which wasn’t conducive to not killing one’s girlfriend.

The solution, then, was clear to Maria. If Ophelia wished to pass through the Astral Clocktower and end the Curse, she would have to best Maria in a simple bout. Even wielding a _Chikage_ , after all, the Lady knew she would be no slouch.

… Besides, she got the feeling Ophe would be delighted if Maria asked her to find a way to strip all the blood-magic nonsense from the ‘practice’ weapon.

Seeing Ophelia excited was a reward all its own, really.

“Yes,” Maria finally said, “that would do nicely.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Upon closer examination, we find that Ophelia is in Maria's head just as much as vice versa.  
> Perhaps, one day, the pair will make a fierce and gallant duo.
> 
> Maria knows, after all, that Ophelia isn't the sort of girl who would be satisfied leaving a lover trapped within the Hunter's Nightmare.   
> When her sentence is served, perhaps she'll be able to make amends in the waking world?  
> The only way to know is to try.


	10. Musings in the Hunter's Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ophelia tries to figure out a puzzle she's missing pieces from. It goes well enough, really. About as well as it could be reasonably expected to.  
> She and Gehrman make some small-talk while working on swords - there really are rather a lot of those in this story, aren't there? - and Ophe thinks about her relationship with Arianna. Or her lack thereof, if you prefer. She's not sure about that, but she tries to be sensible in her reckoning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to skim all the thinking about LORE if you don't really give a heck about such things.  
> Perhaps, after all, it's best to do as Gehrman says, and not think too hard about all this...
> 
> (Next chapter won't be the duel, but the one after it will, if that's got you excited. Odd to think that people might be excited for me to produce something, but I should account for the possibility, aye?)

Gehrman and Ophelia worked in companionable quiet, Gehrman adapting two existing weapons to lock together as a trick weapon while Ophelia engaged in the remarkably and simultaneously convoluted and straightforward act of blunting a magical silver claymore.

Rather than filing or stoning the edges down, the Hunter had settled on blunting the blade magically, via blood-gems and rune-work. It was rather mechanical work, really, and she let her mind wander as she plied tool and time to shape silver.

Her decision to kill ‘the’ devil, she figured, was based on the flawed premise that one… being wasn’t the word. Entity? No, not quite.

Force?

Yes, force, that worked.

Her mission had been based on the flawed premise that one force was responsible for all the ills she saw in the world. In reality, there were several.

One was the Blood Moon, and the descent of the Great Ones with it. That was the source of Arianna’s sudden pregnancy– Ophe hoped she had remedied that with the abortifacient she’d prescribed.

Then there was the ‘Mensis ritual’, which apparently ‘craved a newborn’ and had ‘beckoned’ the moon. What, exactly, it meant to beckon the moon, Ophelia didn’t know, but it sounded an awful lot like the Blood Moon. Rom had either forestalled their ritual or hidden it via some sort of illusion, then, and, in killing her, Ophelia had either broken the illusion or allowed the red moon to descent upon Yharnam. Whatever the truth was, the Blood Moon, and the Mensis scholars who brought it forth, were the source the sudden and horrible progression of the beastly Scourge.

And, in the Hunter’s Nightmare, the orphan of dead Mother Kos cried out in pain and misery, and his cries sustained a curse upon the Hunters, damning them each and all to a fate most unseemly. To go drunk with blood and end up in the Nightmare. To go mad. To turn into horrible beasts. To suffer. To survive with their sanity intact, only to watch the world burn around them. Those who retired, it seemed, were spared, but…

Even if she had the option, Ophelia knew she couldn’t simply retire. Of course, she didn’t have the option at all – which leads into the fourth ‘force’.

This, the Hunter’s Dream. The Dream, which imprisoned old Gehrman, which held Ophelia herself as a darling, honored guest, with all that entailed – save that she could not leave.

A note – Gehrman’s? – in the Workshop said, _“To escape this dreadful Hunter’s Dream, halt the source of the spreading scourge of beasts, lest the night carry on forever.”_

This raised questions.

The note which read, _“Nightmarish rituals crave a newborn. Find one, and silence its harrowing cry.”_ – was that addressed to her? She could hear it, after all. The baby’s cry. Mergo, the child’s name was. It was another of those things which Ophelia found she simply _knew_.

…

It _was_ , wasn’t it? Addressed to her.

The newborn was what sustained the ritual. Mergo’s cries… had they beckoned the moon, then? Brought the Paleblood sky down upon them - upon _Yharnam_. For what purpose, though? Had the scholars of Mensis required it to make The One Reborn, their obviously-failed attempt at manufacturing a Great One?

To what end had they bent rite and ritual? Had they ascended into a Dream or a Nightmare? Those desiccated corpses with their caged heads… had those imbeciles repeated the sins of the Old Hunters and killed an infant Great One in an attempt to reach a higher plane- the Nightmare created by Mergo in her dying moments, which, like the Hunter’s Nightmare did to Kos’ Orphan, would trap her until she was freed by a Hunter’s mercy?

Mensis, the Healing Church, the Choir… their fascination with the Great Ones seemed to be the reason for their fervent pursuit of godhood. They had captured Ebrietas, made the Living Failures and their slightly-less-dopey cousins in the Upper Cathedral Ward – in the orphanage. They had taken people in the night to turn their corpses into The One Reborn. They had likely defiled the body of Mother Kos, and the holy medium of blood… _that_ was the means by which Oedon, the Formless One, interacted with the world, was it not? In voice and in blood.

The Church sought communion with Oedon, so much so that the rune for ‘Communion’ was the symbol of the Healing Church. Blood ministration was the pursuit of communion, that Oedon might heal the sick and the wounded.

For Arianna to have been ‘blessed with a child of blood,’ then – was that the work of Oedon? The woman who had stabbed Iosefka, too – she had turned people into Kin with blood.

Ophelia would have to return to the Clinic and see if she could find any sort of clue.

The Dream held her captive, and would do until such a time as she had stopped the spreading of the Scourge. To stop the spreading of the Scourge, she needed to find and grant mercy to Mergo, thereby disrupting whatever ritual had beckoned the moon and bringing the Night of the Hunt to its end. She had been required to kill Rom, to allow the Blood Moon to shine down upon Yharnam.

The Dream, or whatever hosted it – did it want her to…

It wanted her to Hunt, obviously, but why?

Why did it need her to kill Mergo? Why was she rewarded for killing Great Ones? Had the Blood Moon been there before Rom’s death, then? Such that killing Rom to wipe away an illusion had been necessary.

She didn’t think Oedon had created the Dream.

So... who had?

Who had sent her on the search for Paleblood?

She swore, earning herself a concerned glance from Gehrman.

She just didn’t _know_.

Still, she had objectives, for now. Mergo. Mensis. The Orphan. Maybe the moon? She didn’t expect she could stab the moon, and it was probably rather a long ways away. Hopefully she didn’t need to kill Oedon, either; ‘formless’ sounded fairly unstabbable. Maybe not _completely_ unstabbable, but at least very nearly so. Otherwise he wouldn’t be very formless, now, would he?

…

In hindsight, having a couple girlfriends seemed like the least complicated aspect of Ophelia’s life by… several miles. _At least_ ten.

Maybe she’d kiss Arianna.

She probably should have kissed Arianna… days? Hours? Minutes? A long damn time ago.

Whether they’d have a relationship or not, Ophe wasn’t sure, but it was only right to give the woman a shot. It certainly felt wrong to just dismiss Arianna out of hand because she didn’t- because she didn’t make Ophelia feel the way Iosefka and Maria did. After all, maybe she _would_. Obviously she had affection for the woman, but Maria had reminded the Hunter what it felt like, that connection.

Ophelia didn’t _expect_ to find that with Arianna, but it was possible she’d fall head over heels in love with her winsome friend.

…

“Gehrman?”

The man raised his haggard face from his work and turned to face Ophelia. “Hmm?”

“Did you know any of the… the last generation of Hunters, I suppose? Gascoigne, Eileen, Djura...”

“Djura, the little Powder Keg, and Eileen, the young Crow… both Dreamed, some Hunts ago.” Something in the man’s bearing changed, and suddenly it registered in Ophelia’s mind that he was very, _very_ old.

“How are they, girl?”

“Alive and well – and retired both.”

They lapsed into silence once more.

Hours passed as they busied their hands. Ophelia hummed tunes she knew by heart, but which she also did not know, and, outside, the Doll uttered a quiet prayer.

_O Flora, of the moon, of the dream..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's actually really weird to contemplate the lore as if you didn't know certain things. It helps to get into Ophe's head, as she's capable of rational thought and other such nerdery. She even *reads*! Ha!
> 
> I learned things when I was checking back over the lore notes Ophe would/could have seen, so don't go taking anythin' as gospel, alright? Historically, I'm really bad at remembering what I've learned in Souls/BB - Ophelia's thinking-things-out helped me to, too. Seeing all the lore notes in one place did, too, actually; all the Gaol/Unseen Village notes are obviously talking about the same ritual when you see them all together, etc., etc.. 
> 
> Anyhow, lemme know if I overlooked something super important or anything.  
> Ooh, and feel free to nerd out about BB lore; I figure I've only just started getting into the water, so to speak. My dumb ass didn't make the connection with The One Reborn and Mensis and all that, I just assumed it was a gross corpse man Great One, but Adella all but explicitly tells you what happened.


	11. A Visit at the Altar of Despair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ebrietas receives a visit, and plays therapist once more, saying all the things Ophelia could not have possibly known she wanted or needed to hear.
> 
> The Daughter of the Cosmos truly is a good friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just gals bein' pals.  
> Big sword battle next time, very exciting and all that.

The Altar of Despair was alive with mirth and merriment. The Hunter who smelled of blood, lumenflowers, and moonlight had smiled so very sweetly when Ebrietas had begun to sing, and the little phantasms danced joyously upon either of her shoulders.

Ophelia, child of man, daughter of none.

The girl lay splayed out upon the Altar like a sacrifice to some long-dead god of purity, of noble hearts and earnest wishes and sweet smiles.

That god could pry Ophelia from the cold, dead grasping-branches of her forelimbs, for Ebrietas would not surrender the starry-freckled daughter of the void to any strange god.

Ophelia, Ebrietas felt, was good. She stopped her pipe-organ singing and trilled that feeling at the lounging Hunter. But there was more she needed to hear, wasn’t there?

 _Your sisters are hale and hearty, each destined to be a great warrior, healer, scholar, or diplomat. Each is grown enough, now, to be free of the false-dreams. Each remembers their sister, the seraphim, the first to wake, her laugh, her brilliant green eyes, the birthmark common to them upon her cheek, inverted and prominent. Each loves her, asks the saints to watch over her at their daily prayers, wherever she might be. They know she is far away, so far that they may never meet again, but they know she is alive and they know she is well, for such is the bond of their sisterhood. Some of the youngest ones still cry out for her sometimes, but their elder sisters tell them their tears would break the first’s heart, and sometimes, for a second, they think perhaps they_ should _break her heart, so that she might return, but they know it is a horrible thing to think, and when they confess, their older sisters tell them that if the seraphim could return, she would have already._

The seraphim was crying, now.

Ebrietas puffed warm air onto her, chirred reassuringly, set a reassuring tentacle-tip on her stomach.

_Your friends and family will never forget you, will never stop loving you. They could not, not even if they wished it so. You must let your fear go. If you cannot, you will never see them again._

Sniffling, she raised a hopeful voice. “… And if I can?”

_Surpass it, and you will be able to see them as much as you wish._

“How far away are they, Ebrietas?”

Ebrietas raised her head to peer into the gloom shrouding the Altar from the heavens.

_… Very far, my friend._

“Wait-” Ophelia sniffled again. “I didn’t catch that last warble.”

The Great One wriggled her wings in mock consternation.

_A long time away._

**… Ah. Ebrietas had mixed that one up, hadn’t she? Time was a strange, strange thing.**

_**...** _

 

> “How far away are they, Ebrietas?”
> 
> Ebrietas raised her head to peer into the gloom shrouding the Altar from the heavens.
> 
> _A long time away._
> 
> “Wait-” Ophelia sniffled again. “I didn’t catch that last warble.”
> 
> The Great One wriggled her wings in mock consternation.
> 
> _… Very far, my friend._

_**...** _

**No, no- that wasn’t it, either. It went like _this_.**

“How far away are they, Ebrietas?”

Ebrietas raised her head to peer into the gloom shrouding the Altar from the heavens.

_… Very far, my friend. A long time away._

“Wait-” Ophelia sniffled again, just because her nose was still runny. “I didn’t catch that last warble.”

The Great One wriggled her wings in mock consternation.

_Humans often measure voyages in spans of time. To reach your sisters would be a long span indeed, but time is an immaterial thing, shapeless and shifting. An obstacle of moments._

“I see.” The Hunter stopped to think. “I’ll really be able to see them again?”

_See them, speak with them, hold them; it shall be as you please._

The fear left Ophelia’s heart of its own accord, and Ebrietas watched it seep away, into the Altar, with interest.

Had the girl inadvertently sacrificed that fear upon the Altar of Despair?

The Great One would investigate that later. For now…

_If you are to reunite with your sisters, daughter of none, we must practice their favorite battle-hymns._

“You know them?”

_Not as such. I can sing a song to stimulate your mind in just the right way, so that you may remember them yourself._

Ophelia climbed off the Altar and strode to Ebrietas’ body, which she hugged to the best of her ability.

She didn’t even scream when Ebrietas hugged her back.

Friendship was lovely.

 

* * *

 

Hours later, when Ophelia asked if she knew of any way to free a loved one from the depths of a Nightmare, Ebrietas had been tickled.

 _To make time dance forward and back, to move a mind – it can be done._ _We will need to prepare for such a ritual, however._

“I think I would have been a little worried if you’d said you could do it on the spot,” giggled Ophelia.

_That would not go particularly well, no._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ebrietas PoV is magical, isn't it?


	12. Duel at the Astral Clocktower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ophelia fights for the opportunity to kill herself a godling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These dorks really have it bad for one another, huh.  
> Don't worry, things will get terrible again next time!

Every pair of shackles comes with certain… _opportunities_.

The Hunter’s Dream was a fantastic example. Ophelia was bound to the will of some unknown god, to a night which would not end until her Hunt did. She had to kill as it wished, lest the night go on forever. In order to accomplish this, she was made unable to die. Given access to the amenities of the Dream. Given an unending night to hone her skills. Given free reign to hunt outside her requirements as she pleased.

Given the strength to stand against gods.

To smite them, cast down the wicked, mete out justice in silvered-steel and righteous fury.

She would bring the dark gods to their knees.

 

* * *

 

She eyed her girlfriend curiously.

“You’ll allow me passage to the Orphan if I can best you in a bout?” The Hunter tried not to sound suspicious or incredulous, but a bit of that came through regardless. Still, she was sure Maria understood.

Maria grinned impishly, giving her unblooded _Chikage_ a few practice swings, blunted steel whistling through the air. The practiced ease with which she handled the blade gave Ophe the distinct impression that Maria had been swinging swords since the day she’d been big enough to.

The Hunter could relate. She’d been firing pistols her entire life. All of it. Swords, though… swords were a relatively new addition to her resume.

“I think it is a nice compromise, no?”

Ophelia nodded, placed her wide-brimmed hat atop her head, and hefted her blunted claymore. She had no more words.

There was a fire dancing in Maria’s steel-gray eyes, a fierce joy, as if her heart sang at the prospect of fencing with a lover. Ophelia might have felt something like that, had it not been for the stakes.

No, introducing her mission into the mix kicked fun right out. She could have fun when she wasn’t saving the world. For now, she let her pulse hammer in her veins – the moment Maria took up a ready stance, Ophe leapt towards her and lashed out with an upward slash.

With a flick of her wrists, Maria whipped her borrowed blade into the path of the silver greatsword, parrying it, and put her long legs to use by thrusting a boot-sole into the Hunter’s stomach. Ophelia staggered as the wind was knocked out of her, and Maria disengaged with a quick-step too fast for the Human eye to see, dusty mist dancing around her feet.

She was Quickening.

Ophelia hadn’t considered that Maria, a practitioner of the art, would employ the art.

Something of an oversight, really.

Maria darted invisibly forwards, then, lunging with her curved sword, and Ophelia swiped the flat of her blade in the katana’s path, batting the much lighter weapon aside with ease and transitioning into a shoulder charge. She closed the distance and slammed into the taller woman, losing her hat, knocking Maria off-balance, and providing an opening. She swung her blessed blade diagonally upwards from right to left, landing a solid blow to Maria’s ribs.

The blonde kept her head about her, catching the claymore under her arm and twisting her body to wrench Ophelia out of her stance, whereupon she released the silver sword and stepped inwards to deliver an overhead blow to the Hunter’s shoulder, after which she raised it and whirled it ‘round her head to deliver a punishing strike in the region of Ophelia’s right ear

Pain sent the green-eyed girl reeling, stumbling sideways with the blow to her head. She kept her feet, however, and turned her weapon around to hold it by the blade. Close-in fighting was what half-swording was for, after all, right?

Maria chuckled as Ophelia rushed her. The girl kept her body low, and, just when Maria expected an attack, instead quick-stepped past her and swiped the claymore’s pommel into the space where Maria’s head had been up until the instant she’d vanished and reappeared several feet to the side.

Ophelia managed to turn her sword back around and lash out one-handed, slashing Maria even as she whirled around, the weighty blow of the claymore eliciting a squawk from her, and leaving a fairly nasty bruise across her collarbone and shoulder. She parried Ophe’s two-handed, overhead follow-up, redirecting the heavy blade with her own rather than trying to stop it outright, and struck Ophelia across the back of her thigh as the greatsword’s momentum carried it all the way through to the wooden floor, and the woman a step forward with it.

The Hunter of the Dream roared, not like a beast, but as Humans do, and threw herself into a forward roll, from which she sprung up already halfway turned to face her foe – her love – her weapon raised once more. She went low and lunged long, and Maria sidestepped her thrust and moved to strike at her arms, but Ophelia caught the blow on her quillons and twisted her holy sword to torque the _Chikage_ aside.

A twisting which Maria punished, smashing her hands, still wrapped around the haft of her sword, into Ophe’s face, sending the Hunter to the floor. She sprung up again, each blow only stoking the fire in her heart, and Maria struck her about the head with the scabbard of her Chikage, turning the bruise across the right side of her face an even darker shade.

Even as Maria flinched with the realization of where her attack had landed, just above the thick leather collar that protected most of Ophelia’s face, the girl was countering. She hopped backwards, making room for another powerful thrust, which struck mightily and true, and earned a reprisal in the form of a flurry of blows from sword and scabbard alike, which conspicuously all fell upon heavily-protected bits of Ophe’s anatomy.

They’d still hurt later, mind, but surging adrenaline ensured she barely felt their sting – worse was the tightening in her chest, borne of the knowledge that she could and would capitalize on Maria’s reluctance to hurt her.

Indeed, she shifted her grip on the holy blade once again, hooked Maria’s ankle with the cross-guard and pulled sharply to send the taller woman to the floor.

The inhuman swiftness of a Hunter ensured she was upon Maria before she could evade, pinning her against the floorboards.

Heaving chests and heavy breathing were all that permeated the sudden peace, at first, and when Maria released her grip on her sword and scabbard, Ophelia did the same, easing her knees from the woman’s shoulders as well. Sweat ran down Maria’s fine features, and dripped from the Hunter’s chin and hair onto Maria’s cravat, leaving a stain of a refreshingly non-sanguine variety.

Something shone in Maria’s eyes – elation struck through with adoration, perhaps, as if she were delighted by the outcome of their bout – and she wore a devilish grin, a typically- _Maria_ expression of the sort that diffused the tension from Ophe’s shoulders in a most peculiar way.

“I yield,” Maria said impishly, and Ophe couldn’t help but smile back down at her.

The Hunter bit her lip and shook her head, exasperated. “Enjoyed that, did you?” She laughed through her nose and heaved herself upright, a movement which took rather more effort than it ought to. She offered a hand to Maria, who took it, and hauled her lover upright, adding, “You _rogue_.”

As she reached her feet, Maria tossed her feathered cap aside and, now towering over Ophelia once again, drew the smaller woman close.

“A rogue, am I?” She asked, smirking, a grayish eyebrow arched high.

“Had no-one ever informed you, my lady?”

Maria smiled wolfishly, then, flashing keen eye-teeth and making _someone’s_ heart flutter. “No-one so charming as you, my Hunter.”

Color flushed Ophelia’s cheeks, plainly-visible even before Maria began unlacing her mask.

“An oversight to be sure.” She allowed Maria’s fingers to pick at the laces hiding her face as she fished a pair of blood vials from their loops, administering one to each of them and tucking the spent injectors away in a pouch after. She watched the vigor return fully to Maria’s steel-gray eyes and felt the bruise fade from her face, satisfied that they had done so relatively little damage to one another.

Ophe’s mask was tossed quite flippantly aside, and Maria kissed her, sweet and gentle.

“You were wonderful, little one.”

“I take it you weren’t upset I cheated, then,” Ophelia observed flatly, and Maria laughed.

“Hardly! Imagine what you could do with a sword half the size.”

At this, the Hunter snorted. “The reach is nice to have against beasts, monsters-” She paused and seriously considered for a moment. “Just about everything but beautiful ladies, come to think of it.”

“Flatterer.”

“Perhaps, but you’re certainly an outlier, Maria. I don’t know if you’d noticed, but you’re really rather quick.”

A sly grin. “I must have overlooked it, good Hunter.”

For a time, they stayed like that. Ophe didn’t protest when Maria slipped something into her coat, instead pressing another kiss to her partner’s lips. “I don’t suppose that’s my ticket to the Orphan, is it?”

Maria hesitated to answer. Averted her gaze.

Nerves?

Seeing the rakish Lady Maria anxious – worried, perhaps? – wasn’t Ophelia’s favorite thing in the world, to say the least.

At length, she answered, “It is.” She wrapped a few fingers around Ophelia’s wrist, as if afraid the Hunter would bolt off without so much as a fare-thee-well. “Before you go, Ophelia, know that I love you– no matter what happens in that Hamlet.”

A smile spread across Ophe’s face. “I love you, too, Maria.” She pecked the pale swordswoman’s chin. “And I’ll free you from this Nightmare, I swear it. Ebrietas and I have some theories about the Altar of Despair...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She really rather does have a rakish charm about her, Maria, does she not?  
> Next time they fight, both of them will enjoy it very much. That's not innuendo. I mean, maybe a little, but- please, get your mind out of the gutter, darling.


	13. Foray into the Fishing Hamlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ophelia finally proceeds beyond Maria's chamber and gets a taste of the kinds of places where Great Ones die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's time to party like it's 1931.
> 
> I expect Ophelia probably has a bit of a posh accent, which would explain entirely why the gloom and the rain only bother her so much.

Once, the Doll had asked the moon-scented Hunter if the Gods loved their creations. She had made rather a poignant case – _“I am a Doll, created by you Humans. Would you ever think to love me? Of course, I do love you...”_

As her boots splashed down into muck and mud and calf-deep water, rain sheeting off her crow’s-feather cloak and drumming upon the brim of her hat, Ophelia knew that, _no_ , the gods had no love for what they had wrought.

No affection to offer, no remorse for their crimes.

In kind, they would receive no mercy.

After all, what quarter could a mere girl offer a god?

They would repay their debt to mankind, and they would do so in blood.

Ophelia, you see, loved the Doll. Nameless though she was, she was a kind and compassionate companion nonetheless. Someone the Hunter considered a true and valued friend. An ally. A presence so calming that Ophelia had no issue curling up and sleeping beside her.

That was the difference between Gods and Men.

The sky-puncture sun tried to shine down upon the dreary hamlet, but the gloom and the gray overwhelmed and overpowered it, wreathing the world outside the Astral Clocktower in at atmosphere of palpable melancholia. In fact, a darker gray corona surrounded it, flickering like some sort of accursed flame, surely dimming its light further.

Stepping through the opening in the face of the clock had been odd, but Maria had seen her off, and had agreed to send Simon through after her when he inevitably showed up.

The Hunter figured she could use the backup, after all, and the man, while shady… he simply wished to bring an end to this damnable curse.

She cast her gaze about, sharp green eyes taking it all in.

Water, as far as the eye could see. Not quite up to her knees, here, but level out to the horizon, and impossibly – literally impossibly, by the standards of the realm Man was meant to dwell upon – deep past the abrupt edge to the strip of land, perhaps fifteen feet wide, which lead from the Clocktower to the fishing village.

In the distance, the masts of broken and battered ships rose from the sea on either side of the path, tattered sails hanging in rags from their rigging. Ophelia counted a half-dozen of them, all told, though thick fog limited visibility drastically – who knew how many lurked within that blanket of mist?

Beneath the masts – beneath the sea, beneath this _plane_ – were the gothic spires and tiled rooftops of Yharnam. Presumably the Nightmare Yharnam, but Ophelia couldn’t guarantee that. Perhaps the Yharnam she saw to her right was the Nightmare version, and the one to her left was the waking world?

Canoes floated idly along the path into the tiny town, each bearing a skeletal corpse and a pair of burning candles, one at either end. The path itself, slick with mud and rain, bore a number of neatly-stacked piles of skulls, and a number of scrawny, leafless trees dotted either side of the way.

A filigreed round bottle of silver with an ornate matching stopper lay half-buried in the mud – lead elixir, a syrupy, weighty medicine, theorized to materialize in the most desperate of nightmares. She picked it up and put it in her haversack, allowing the Messengers to whisk it away to the Dream.

No surprise, finding that, she supposed.

A skull brimming with Insight, too, further down the path – also whisked away.

Halfway down the path, a cloaked man, thin and hunched and obviously no longer quite Human, drew nearer, near enough that Ophe could hear his utterances over wind, thunder, and rain.

 _“_ _Byrgenwerth... Byrgenwerth...”_ he rasped. _“Blasphemous murderers… Blood-crazed fiends.”_

His face was eyeless, his forehead extending down, blue and featureless – save for deep wrinkles at its corners and heel which seemed to indicate it had _grown_ downwards to its current position, just above his mouth. His fanged, peculiar mouth. His eyeteeth were oversharp and oversized to an extent which provided stark and shocking contrast to those of, say, Maria, whose-

Come to think of it, Ophelia realized her prominent canines might have been genetic – a trait related to the Cainhurst line, perhaps. Maria was, after all, distantly related to Annalise, Queen of Castle Cainhurst- and the ‘Vilebloods’ who had once lived there.

 _“_ _Atonement for the wretches… By the wrath of Mother Kos… Mercy for the poor, wizened child… Mercy,_ _O,_ _please...”_

The man’s cloak was topped with a strange, hat-like arrangement, and was ragged and ripped and threadbare, ratty at the edges and stained as if with the ink of an octopus around the crown of his hat-thing, dark, dark bluish purple. Much lighter stains covered large patches of it, and barnacles coated its lower reaches. What looked like a portion of very large fishing net was draped over the man and his cloak, and he made an awful lot of exceptionally unpleasant noises that made it sound as if he was trying – and failing – but trying _very hard_ to cough up an entire lung’s worth of phlegm.

Just the noises were enough to make the Hunter nauseous.

_“Lay the curse of blood upon them, and their children, and their children's children, forevermore. Each wretched birth will plunge each child into a lifetime of misery. Mercy for the poor, wizened child… Let the pungence of Kos cling, like a mother's devotion...”_

She asked if he was alright, and he simply repeated his incantation.

That, she figured, was that, and moved on.

Ramshackle, barnacle-encrusted buildings, with ship’s masts and nets hanging overhead, were her introduction to the village, forming a sort of mock archway which led her into a small, open area. A lamp was there, casting its comforting purple glow upon shallow water, and near it, from a rafter overhead, hanged a body.

‘Hung,’ for those who wished to be both pedantic and incorrect in their assumption that the two forms weren’t interchangeable.

Arguments of that sort were fit to make a woman uncomfortable using either of the words, really, and that was a notion that made _Ophelia_ uncomfortable.

The body had been decapitated – almost cleanly, too – and strung up by its ankles. Its wrists, of course, were lashed together, that its body might form the Caryll Rune which meant “Hunter”.

The Rune itself looked like a crow’s talon grasping at a bit of corn, perhaps, or a flanged mace rested on its head… or an upside-down, hanging corpse, its wrists bound together, its throat cut that it might be drained of blood.

…

Strange, luminous bugs, light blue and shaped a bit like ellipses – the ovular sort – with a number of legs Ophelia didn’t bother to count.

A snap of her fingers activated the lamp, strengthening its glow, pleasing the little Messengers in their dapper top hats, and allowing her to travel to and from the Dream.

She could smell the taint of corruption on the air, an undertone to the scents of the sea, the rain, and wood rotted by long exposure to water.

This town was diseased, and Ophelia was the antibiotic the doctor prescribed.

 

* * *

 

The disease was fish people.

Gurgling, nauseating, _tainted_ fish people. They had gangly limbs and spears and barnacles and they didn’t seem quite so much like their skeletons were doing things skeletons ought to anymore, because they’d sort of _ooze_ out of tight spots, because ol’ Granny Fishmums just _had_ to bed that octopus and now everyone was _squishy_.

Two sword-strokes were enough to put each of them down, however.

Why couldn’t they be like Ebrietas? Ebrietas was beautifully alien, distinctly inhuman and possessed of plantlike qualities in addition to animal ones – her tentacles _branched_!

No, these creatures were abominable. Their giant, shark-man friends? Somehow even worse.

Still, she fought her way through the little village, encountering ichthyic, finned hunting dogs and harpoon-throwers and, both in the square by the well and up the hill which lead to the next lamp, meditating sages launched fusillades of purple, skull-shaped arcane projectiles into the air.

The next lamp, as mentioned, was up an incline and past an immobile spellcaster, and, after wiping out a several-man patrol and its dogs, the Hunter rushed for the sage, who perched out of her reach, several meters up a miniature cliff-face.

A second shark giant fell upon her flank as she dashed up the earthen ramp that would bring her to the wizard’s level, and she nimbly leapt over the– gods above, was that an _anchor_ it was swinging about?! – she leapt over the monster’s weapon as it tore a rent in the rain-sodden soil and darted past it, weaving around the barrage of vengeful violet spirits and sprinting into a shack dead-ahead of her, having caught the barest glimpse of a pale lavender light from within its depths.

The Hunter threw herself through the door, tucking and rolling to turn the desperate dive into a forward somersault, and the massive, cartilaginous abomination swung its weapon through the shack’s flimsy wooden wall. Blood splattered about, and dust and splinters were sent flying, obscuring her sight, as if the confusion and fear weren't’ enough.

Without thinking, Ophe lunged forwards to strike at its blubbery face, slashing its nose and neck and driving the bastard of a creature to reel back in pain and stumble away, deciding that this prey wasn’t worth the trouble.

It was only after the proverbial smoke cleared that the moonlit Hunter realized where the initial spray of blood had come from: Simon, the archer, who had apparently laid on the floor by the door, and whose chest had been obliterated by the same stroke that had torn through the wall.

“… _Simon_?”

The dead man did not answer.

Had he slipped past her when she’d been clearing out one of the buildings?

She cursed.

Another comrade dead.

No last words, no decorum.

He was just smashed into the floor.

Ophelia lit the lamp and pressed on in a haze. There weren’t even any birds to feed Simon to – she couldn’t even give the poor bastard a proper gods-damned _burial_.

She was standing on rooftops when a bell began ringing quite loudly, emanating from all around her at once, and a man wearing antlers atop his head appeared in a malicious red glow on the far side of a rickety wooden bridge.

He wielded a mace, which he promptly shoved through his own chest – it came out larger, covered in spikes, and he advanced on her, determined to draw blood.

As he closed the distance, he emptied the contents of a small bottle into his mouth.

Ophe didn’t know what it was, and didn’t particularly care.

When he swung his weapon at her, she shot him in the chest and lunged towards him, shoving her hand though his stomach and performing a merciless visceral – she tore the hand free of his innards and sent him sprawling, and tensed, ready to strike, as he forced himself upright.

As soon as he was vertical, she thrust her blade through his sternum, running him through and killing him instantly – she twisted the sword and jerked it violently to the right, its silvered-steel edge ripping through his side with effortless ease.

He collapsed and dissolved in red light and a puddle of his own gore, but the Hunter paid him little mind as she moved on.

Moonlight thrummed with approval, and she placed a kiss on the flat of the blood-streaked claymore as she proceeded across the bridge.

The blessed blade urged her onwards. Wiggles and Legs complained in her pockets, but she paid them no heed, her world one of sanguine reds and blue-green moonlight as she butchered her way through the little Hamlet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Simon's death in-game actually surprised me so much that I couldn't not include it, y'know?  
> At least Moonlight was always by her side.


	14. Fishing Hamlet - Lower Half & Caves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ophelia sweeps up the back half of her Hamlet adventure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how it is in small towns.  
> You've seen the whole place, looted everything, killed everyone -- now what the heck are you supposed to do?  
> They don't even have a bar! A *bar*!

The denizens of the lower half of the Fishing Hamlet fell more easily than their prior comrades. Storm-Callers, lightning mages… whatever one wished to call the piscine shamans, with their hunched, hooded forms and their tall, tall staves, they posed nowhere near the threat the giant shark-men did. A single casting from her Executioner’s Gauntlets was enough to take one of them down, and, while the lightning they called forth from above was certainly damaging – and rather remarkably painful – the fully-realized Clockwork Metamorphosis Rune she’d etched into her mind made her sturdy enough to take a jolt or two without much trouble. Likewise, a second invasion from the bell-ringing man had been cut drastically short with spell and sword.

She’d found a door of cast-iron bars in a cave which opened into the hut with the lamp and the body of the man who could well have become a friend, in another life, and decided to loop back. After a trip to the Dream, of course, where the Doll had gladly bolstered her arcane expertise, and the workbench had seen the Hunter working with Blood Gems, experimenting, replacing, and so on.

She returned to the lantern, called ‘Lighthouse Hut’ on the Dream transposition of Maria’s tombstone, and took a moment to center herself – find her bearings.

The giant that had killed Simon (and, she belatedly realized, _herself_ , though when exactly she could not recall – but it had the faint glow to its eyes that proved it had stolen the Blood Echoes she had carried in her veins at the time of a death) still lumbered about, patrolling the natural ramp with its freshly-resurrected comrades.

While she didn’t intend to go on a rampage, she felt that cutting that bastard down was a worthwhile endeavor.

It was a rough fight, though not a particularly remarkable one, and she had healed as many self-inflicted wounds – for the purposes of magecraft, of course – as she had ones dealt by her colossal foe.

The injuries doled out by that anchor, though, took twice as many vials to recover from.  


 

* * *

 

The snail women, resting among piles of innumerable pale blue eels, were odd. The Hunter had seen one, before, of course – the poor thing that had fallen from this level of the Nightmare down to the lower one, where the Old Hunters dwelt.

They were, she thought, rather cute. Angrier than she expected, certainly, but their shells slowed them down enough that they weren’t a threat if she avoided them, and they only lashed out when she drew too near them.

These judgments could well be taken as excuses, but, taken in tandem with the fact that they were cute girls – and this was, some might argue, their greatest defense in the face of sweet Ophelia, though she would surely have slaughtered them if they’d proven troublesome – was their saving grace, their benediction.

The slug women who leapt and sped and screamed at her were cut down with impunity, of course, as she headed into the more traditional cave which branched of from the cavern – an opening at the far end let sunlight through, and she found another filigreed bottle of lead elixir there, along with a third attempt by the man clad in beast hides and his silly little bell.

He was unceremoniously parried, riposted, run through, and finished off with a fireball from the Hunter’s eye. He left behind pants this time, though-- to go with the bloody upperwear and gloves, she supposed.

Ophelia wouldn’t be donning his garb anytime soon.

The opening at the end of the tunnel actually opened out from a cliff-face overlooking a beach, and a glimpse of a large, white mass resting upon the shore spurred the girl who smelled of moonlight, blood, and lumenflowers to carefully hoist herself upon the large – chest-high, for Ophelia – rocks which partially sealed off the opening to get a better look. Her monocular brought to her eye, she peered at the great creature, and a sense of woe came over her.

It was – _She_ was – a long thing, ash-white and laid out in the middle of the beach, whose breadth she occupied a third of. In shape, she reminded the Hunter of an octopus or a squid, but Ophelia got the idea that the thin protrusion to the left was the being’s neck, and the portion which resembled the hood of a squid was actually posterior.

Human eyes can only see so clearly and so far, of course – fine detail was lost in the downpour still hammering down from the skies.

This was, she knew – in the way that she seemed to ‘just know’ many odd things – the carcass of Mother Kos, a true Great One.

She turned away in… disgust? Shame? Ophe did not know.

The other branch of the cave had more slug women and another of the skull-launching sages from the upper echelon of the Hamlet – dispatched with sword and spell and, in the case of the sage, a throwing knife, tossed from a safe distance.

The tunnel doubled back, then, rearwards and to the right, where there was a drop into a wider, open chamber. Ophelia hopped down and got her bearings – she could hear many-eyed, singing Not-Dolls off down a tunnel to the right, which wasn’t appealing at all, but there was also a conveniently-illuminated lever to the left, clearly some sort of elevator mechanism.

A round pit in the floor, complete with ladder, drew her eye, and a branch off of the cave dead ahead boasted a praying slug woman, on her hands and knee-analogues.

The Hunter did not know how to feel about the realization that the slug women had… rather shapely backsides.

_Don’t look at the snail lady, think about Maria-_

Maria, with her long, supple legs, every inch of her lithe and fit and wrapped in soft, porcelain skin-

_Ophelia,_ _**please** _ _._

She pulled the lever, appreciating the rattle of chain and mechanism as a platform lowered, and took a moment to descend into the pit and retrieve the Blood Gem formed in the blood of the corpse therein.

Sliding down a ladder was always faster than climbing back up, but that’s the toll gravity takes.

The elevator brings her up to a closed-off room of that same shack where Simon died – it was a lighthouse, and the elevator descended from the floor of the tower. Ophelia had been too preoccupied with her rampage (and her imminent demise the time before that) to notice that, before. The lighthouse, that is. The tombstone had mentioned it in the name of the location, but she hadn’t _seen_ it.

The spiral staircase leading to the top of the tower was broken in too many places to be worth even attempting to climb, just wooden beams protruding inwards from the structure’s outer walls, but at least she had another shortcut.

Tiny Tonitrus dealt with the two – yes, two – not-Dolls and their wretched, frenzying songs, but not before they could send crystalline blood lancing forth from all over her body some four or five times.

A pillar-centered hub had two branches, one leading to another cove of snail women and eels, and another leading to the bare ass of a shark giant who seemed content to cling with all four limbs to the ceiling of yet another round chamber, this one Ophe recognizing as being the town’s well, back in the village square. The opening into the room was a sheer vertical drop to the watery floor below. Another giant lurked on the floor a third of a revolution ‘round the chamber away from his hanging buddy, and some horrible enchantment prevented her from sticking the hanging man with a curious toss of a poisoned throwing knife – she’d have to kill his landlubber friend, first.

The slug room seemed promising, because she wasn’t willing to admit she saw Maria’s beloved _Rakuyo_ stuck through the belt of that hanging Giant.

It was, as expected, full of eels and slug women, but a Blood Rock – a truly spectacular find – lay at the end of the chamber, and a pair of bolt shamans took it upon themselves to pelt her with the wrath of the skies as slug women sprung angrily upon her.

She was overwhelmed and slain, then, but she had her Blood Rock and she’d enhance her guiding Moonlight as soon as she’d got her lover’s sword (swords?) back from a pair of blubbery bastards.

  


* * *

  


They’d still managed to give her a thorough walloping upon her perch, but magic and perseverance conquer all, and she’d retrieved the _Rakuyo_ without much issue, aside from the broken bones and the shortage of blood vials on her person by the time she’d finished.

Ophelia was impressed just handling the weapon. A saber with a dagger attached to the hilt, light and quick and able to be split into sword and dagger in either hand – the idea of taking advantage of her ambidexterity was one that appealed to the Hunter, and she resolved to have the Messengers conjure a copy of the weapon for her even as she pressed a bold Hunter’s Mark over her eyes and traced the oh-so-familiar Hunter Rune in her mind, causing her to awaken back at the Shack’s lamp, which she promptly used to return to the Dream.

_Home._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearing the end of this Nightmare, but this is only one leg of a long journey.


	15. Respite in the Darkened Clocktower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maria comforts her favorite small lady and tries out "dove" as a term of endearment.
> 
> Ophelia also has a revelation about things, but we all know you're here for the loving and supportive relationships and fond interactions, you sinner, you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (That was a joke, but not necessarily untrue.)

The silence of the Astral Clocktower was broken when a green-eyed Hunter materialized at the little purple lantern just inside the great double-doors, now shut, laden with a bundle of fine, neatly-folded clothing and a unique trick weapon.

Comfortable semi-darkness filled the chamber, a luxury afforded by the bridging of the gap between the Fishing Hamlet and the Clocktower, which resided still in the Nightmare’s rendition of Yharnam – the gloom of the Hamlet and the darkness gnawing at its sun reduced the green and yellow light shining through the clock face to mere ambiance, simply because the clock itself was the portal spanning the two connected planes, and thus the light that fell upon the clock’s face was the same that fell elsewhere in the rainy domain of the piscine folk.

All the candles had been snuffed, casting the pews they perched upon into darkness, and the Messengers worshiping at the lamp dimmed the purple flame respectfully, their tiny, shriveled little hands working clumsily but with admirable efficiency.

Maria stirred beneath the covers, opening one drowsy eye. “ _…_ Little One?” She yawned.

“It’s me, darling,” the Hunter quietly replied, and Maria raised an arm to languidly beckon her sweet, silver-haired Hunter closer.

“You have been away for some time.” Maria propped herself up on an elbow and lifted the blankets invitingly. “Come, dove. I have missed you in my arms.”

A wry smile graced Ophelia’s features, and she rolled her eyes, fond but a tad exasperated. “You can be very cute, when it suits you.”

Her tone made Maria wonder if the Hunter had someplace else to be, or perhaps wasn’t in the mood for such things, but it took her only a moment to begin liberating herself from the shackles of leather and belts and buckles.

“I… am not certain if that is a compliment or not,” Maria mused.

“Nor am I,” Ophelia said, chuckling a second later.

It struck Maria that her Hunter sounded so very… _tired_.

She saw the dark, heavy circles under the smaller woman’s eyes as soon as she eased into bed, and wrapped her up in an embrace without hesitation.

When she felt the tension in Ophelia’s shoulders ease up, she placed a kiss on the bridge of her nose and asked, “Tell me, dear Hunter; what have you slain?”

“Most everything that lurks within the Hamlet,” the Hunter answered after a moment of consideration, “save for my prey.”

“Your quarry?”

“Prey,” Ophe insisted. “This will not be a sporting hunt, dear, but slaughter.”

Maria frowned a little. “An infant Great One is a Great One still, dove.”

The Hunter offered a tired smile. “Tell that to my thirteen corpses, sweeting,” she quipped.

Wincing, Maria stroked Ophelia’s somewhat mussy hair. “Oh, good Hunter.” She squeezed her love reassuringly. “How many deaths before the Orphan?”

“… At least a dozen. Fifteen, maybe twenty?”

“And yours has been a very long hunt.”

“It has.”

“That does not sound like enough deaths to have become accustomed to it.”

A weak chuckle. “It’s not pleasant, no. If it was, I might not have an excuse to come see you.”

Maria kissed her. Felt Ophelia smile against her lips.

“I think I’m gonna go kill some of those blue-eyed beasts in the Upper Cathedral Ward. Might get some Bloodstone chunks out of it.”

“Do you need to refine your weapons, my Hunter?”

“No, but… I’m a mage, you know? And the Orphan, he resists every bit of magic I can do. Bolt? Fire? Plain, pure magic?” She sighed, and Maria stifled a giggle.

“Ah. I remember it drove Ludwig up the wall when his precious sword did not bite so deeply as he thought it ought to.”

“I can relate.”

Maria was quiet for a moment, considering. “He would have liked you, Ludwig.”

“He gave me my Moonlight,” Ophelia notes with a shrug.

A nod. “He did. He was a true hero, with an honest heart. A truly wonderful man. Like you, in a way.”

Ophelia raised an eyebrow, teased, “You admired him?”

Maria laughed. “I admired him the way I hope you admire that sword of yours, Little One.”

“I hate to cast aspersions upon the both of us in one stroke, but that doesn’t actually clear things up, much.”

Maria laughed harder, cheeks warming. “I am attracted to _women_ , Ophelia.”

“Mmh. And I’m attracted to women and maybe swords,” the Hunter joked dryly. She managed to keep a straight face until Maria lost all control and descended into a fit of titters.

They were both laughing, now, the hurt from before already beginning to feel distant- muted.

A Hunter who assigned their pain much regard often met a grisly end, and the problem only worsened when that Hunter Dreamed. After all, what could wear on a soul more than waking up from one terrible end only to rise to another?

“Anyways, I brought you your _Rakuyo_ , and a fresh copy of your outfit. So you don’t have to wear the blood-stained cravat anymore.”

Maria grinned. “I could kiss you, my Hunter.”

“You could,” said her lover, and Maria bit her lower lip.

And she did.

They separated, and she breathed, “You, girl, are _insufferable_.”

“I love you too, Maria.”

Again, Maria giggled, and Ophelia placed a hand on her cheek. “Darling, I’ve just realized I need to apologize to old Gehrman.”

“Oh?”

“The Doll, she looks like you, but the differences between the two of you are just as striking as the similarities.” She shook her head, smiling to herself. “He wasn’t trying to make a copy of you, but another daughter. She wasn’t a replacement, but a _surrogate_. A sister.”

“Ah. As the Gods do.”

Ophelia nodded thoughtfully. “I found a ‘Third Cord, in the Old Abandoned Workshop. The woman who stabbed Iosefka had one, too, when I went back to investigate – it almost makes me wonder if Gehrman… _shit_.”

Suddenly a bit concerned, Maria frowned. “What is it, Ophelia?”

“The real copy of the Doll was there, too, twitching as if asleep-”

“-and adream?”

At some point, Maria realized, the Hunter had gone a bit pale, but she bobbed her head in agreement nonetheless. “Perhaps Gehrman made a covenant with a Great One – the one hosting the Hunter’s Dream – and became its surrogate child, in return having the Doll brought to life?” A slight frown creased her lips. “And agreed to beckon Hunters to the Dream, that they – _we_ – might hunt both beasts and rival gods.”

“Good Hunter...” Maria kissed her gently. “Are you sure of all this?”

Ophelia laughed bitterly, surprising them both. She was tense again – when had that happened? Maria had not noticed, and that worried her. “Not in the slightest, no, but I’m more convinced than ever that I’ll be killing whatever hosts the Dream before the night is out.”

“Plenty of time, dearest Ophelia.” Maria soothed, running a hand through grayish hair, and she nearly let out a grateful sigh when her Hunter relaxed against her body. In her embrace.

“Indeed. For now-” She snuggled up to her girlfriend, their legs intertwining, and finished, “-this is all I need worry about.”

A warm smile danced onto Maria’s face as Ophelia closed her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Sweeting' is a real thing people said, by the by.
> 
> And I still find it funny that Ophe wears bloomers.


	16. Shoreside Atonement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ophelia did it.  
> So why does she feel so empty?  
> Why does her victory ring hollow?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can watch the actual fight here, if you want. Maybe it'll make up for the short chapter?  
> <https://youtu.be/Hp7yxov0ioI>  
> Fun fact: I actually went back and edited the previous chapter after I (we?) ran out of vials, because I needed a break and so did Ophe. It had been pre-Orphan before then, but I changed it -- likely for the better.  
> After that, parrying was discovered, and our eyes were open.
> 
> I can't come up with a way to bully myself overmuch about that fight, so I suppose it must have been decent. Righteous fury makes one trigger-happy, though, it seems.

It was on the seventeenth attempt that the Orphan’s strength left its wizened body, vivid red blood running down the length of silvered steel which had slashed through its heart and embedded itself in the creature’s chest in one decisive stroke. Haggard, scrawny frame shuddering one final time, he went silent, and his now-lifeless body pitched sideways, sliding free of Ophelia’s blade with a by-now unremarkable _squelch_. There was no dull thunk, but a splash, as the slain Great One’s corpse collapsed into eight or ten inches of water, leaving the moon-scented Hunter alone, accompanied only by the steady pattering and plonking of heavy rain falling on shore and shallows alike, and her own belabored breathing.

Until the Orphan dissolved in the usual white haze, of course, and the water its body had displaced all came rushing back into that now-empty space with a babbling and a clap.

The violent, erratic movement of the child had ensured their fight had been all over the available beach, and had ended in the broad, long stretch of shallows where Ophelia now stood unopposed, claymore held still out before her, rain drumming on the wide, flat brim of her hat.

“That’s our penance, then.” She said to no-one, her voice hollow. “One more completed atonement.” The sword fell to her side. “For- for _us_. Hunters. For comrades I never had and never shall.”

Tears welled up in her eyes, and she pulled her hat off, sheathing her bloodied Moonlight as an afterthought.

Cleaning could come later.

_Sorry, Moonlight._

Rain intermingled with sweat, god’s-blood, and fresh tears as Ophelia raised her eyes to the sky. “Was this really it?”

The storm-clouds offered no response. They had none to offer.

Perhaps the clouds simply didn’t know what to say? One could hardly blame them, really.

“All this suffering, and it’s over like that?”

She stood there for awhile. Let the rain rinse blood both human and not from her hair, and wet it back down. It still felt frizzy from when the infant had called down an actual bolt of lightning on her head.

That had damn near killed her.

She administered a last, unnecessary blood vial to herself, just to turn angry, mostly-healed wounds into healed ones – to soothe aches and pains, ease her walk back to the corpse of Kos.

Was she supposed to feel like this?

This… numbness.

An indistinct figure of pitch-black smoke stood on absent legs atop Kos’ carcass, its features obscure, its form long and thin and limbless. It stared mournfully out across the sea, gazing at the false sun, perhaps.

Moonlight throbbed with anger – with _hate –_ and a corner of Ophe’s lip quirked up in a snarl, flashing one of her canine teeth. In the span of an instant, the holy blade was in her hand and she was running at the thing, sword turning blue-green as its blade broadened, and she was upon it, her opening slash-

It fizzled and blew away on a breeze headed out to sea.

_Was that it?_

The sky cleared, the false sun dissolving, leaving behind a patch of blue sky- the creeping glow of a coming sunrise. The rain had stopped, too, leaving eerie quiet and nothing to wash it all away.

Ophelia averted her gaze. Lit the freshly-sprouted Dream Lamp, then promptly ignored it. The walk back to the Astral Clocktower wouldn’t be too long; she needed a little time anyways. She turned away from the sight that might have captivated others, seated her cap on her head where it belonged, and didn’t look back.

_Hunters’ work is shadowy work, done in the dark._

She had no place being in the daylight. No right to stand beneath the sun’s rays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has Ophelia truly become so inured to the death and the violence? Surely it hasn't always been this way, but...  
> Without memory, who will ever know?


	17. A Celebration in the Astral Clocktower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a Nightmare slain and a Curse lifted, Ophelia returns to a place which has begun to feel rather a lot like a home, and celebrates her victory with Maria and a bottle of wine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out saw-swords work as saws. Sorta like saw-backed bayonets.  
> Perhaps the saw-sword was a similar item- an engineer's tool, turned into a weapon by necessity when leaving the Scourge to a small number of Hunters became untenable? It was, of course, already a weapon in this scenario, but the serrated edge wouldn't have been used on anything that doesn't qualify as ligneous.  
> Or maybe it was just a neat idea I recycled from a scrapped concept I had a couple years ago.
> 
> The world may never knoooow~

She used the ladder from near the Fishing Hamlet’s first lamp to climb back into the Astral Clocktower.

Ducked through the face of the clock, clutching a fresh wound in her side – unaware she was silhouetted against the beauty of dawn’s early light. She rested her greatsword on her shoulder, fresh blood and ichor dripping from its tip, its silver plating worn on the edges from use.

Maria stood before her, resplendent in clean garb, her Rakuyo’s two pieces sheathed at either hip. Pristine white cravat, lacy shirt, well-kempt coat and neatly-pressed trousers. The feathers in her new cap were as jubilant and jaunty as her smile – wide with ivory teeth.

Ophelia knew her garb was battle-torn by that point, and was well-worn before. It suited them, though, the contrast – or so she thought. Maria was noble in blood and in bearing. Proud and regal. Ophelia herself- well, she was a beast-hunter. An exterminator with no past and no name.

_Born of the blood._

A Hunter, and naught besides. Not a hero or a saviour. Everything had been long-dead when she walked in. Genocides carried out, Great Ones summoned, Blood Moons beckoned.

She was an avenging angel. Brought into the world to ensure that there would be retribution- for the wrongdoings of men and gods alike. And there would be.

There would be hell to pay.

All would be laid low before her.

“Little One… you have done it. I could _feel_ it the moment you struck the final blow.” There was pride in her voice, Ophelia could hear it, and the almost-quavering of barely-contained emotion – though the Hunter did not know what emotion it was. Probably a mix of a few of them, if not quite a few.

She strode to Ophe and wrapped her up in an embrace, heedless of the blood and the muck.

“As if a great weight was suddenly lifted-- from my shoulders and my heart.”

In response, the girl draped her free hand about Maria’s waist, not entirely certain how one was meant to properly embrace someone while holding a claymore over one’s shoulder, and tried to be less stiff in her love’s arms. This didn’t work, of course, but the Old Hunter didn’t comment on it. For this, the last of the Hunters was grateful.

Maria likely understood, or so she reasoned. She had been one of the first Hunters, after all. It could just be that she was one of those special people who make exceptionally sharp girlfriends.

“I am glad I did not eviscerate you, Ophelia,” Maria cooed, and Ophe grinned, chewed her lip a little.

“Mmn. It would have made the sex rather more awkward, I think.” She said flatly.

The noblewoman raised an eyebrow, seemingly fighting to keep a straight face. “You would not have held it against me?”

“I mean, in hindsight, I could definitely see you having thought I was touching you inappropriately when I checked your pulse in your thigh.” Ophelia shrugged, over-aware of the blood dripping onto Maria’s capelet from her hat’s brim. She didn’t know Maria had thought exactly that, of course. She offered a sly smile. “Besides, how long could you _really_ go before my pouting started to get to you?”

“Hm. Show me your pout, again?”

Ophelia demonstrated, and Maria frowned – was something wrong?

“Three times, perhaps, good Hunter.”

It was then that Ophelia realized she hadn’t removed her mask. She squinted at her girlfriend. “Are you trying to preserve my dignity, darling?”

A giggle escaped Maria. “No, Little One. The look in your eyes alone was enough.”

The Hunter’s cheeks warmed, and she knew Maria could tell. “I must admit, at times I forget I’m wearing the mask.”

“Better for you to forget it is there than always made uncomfortable by it,” Maria said, nodding sagely, the feather in her hat bobbing cheerfully in response. “Ah- but here I am, crowding you at the door.” She smirked. “I would make a terrible wife.”

Ophelia, for one, found herself entirely stumped by that remark. For several reasons.

Reasons including, but not limited to: The fact that the very idea of Maria being a terrible wife was remarkably unrealistic. The prospect of Maria marrying someone. The prospect of Maria marrying _**her**_. The idea of marriage as a whole. The possible implication that – for some reason – Maria might wish to marry her, the Hunter, Ophelia, whose arrival portended only death and despair (or would that stop, now that the curse had been lifted?), whose sense of self-worth was a _joke_ , who showed up covered in blood a not insignificant portion of the time, whose last relationship-

Maria kissed her. “Come back to me, Ophelia.” She said, and squeezed the smaller woman a little.

Squeezed the woman with a gash in her side that she’d forgotten about when embraced by a certain lady with platinum blonde hair and piercing gray eyes.

Naturally, Ophelia yelped and tried to backstep away, her eyes screwing shut as if it would somehow ease the pain. Maria held onto her, however, albeit with a gentler grip, and prevented the poor girl from jumping out of the Clocktower and hurting herself.

“Afraid I’m out of vials,” admitted the Hunter, who now opened her eyes to peer down at her wound. It wasn’t a particularly gnarly one, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant – those harpoons the fish-men threw had ragged edges, _tore_ as much as they cut – it seemed like Maria had just pressed a glove or a sleeve against it or into it, and the wound had protested.

Maria produced one from her own coat and gently administered it – into Ophelia’s neck, rather unusually, but the healing took effect quickly, and the moon-scented girl knew better than to question results, and wasn’t particularly bothered about it in the first place. More... surprised, really. The taller woman passed her a second vial, which she accepted gratefully and injected as she always had.

It still fascinated her how quickly the healing blood took effect. Even as she felt her body knitting itself back together, she marvelled at its efficacy.

When her flesh stopped squirming, she let out a relieved sigh. “Thank you, Maria.”

 

* * *

 

They were drinking wine because Ophe had killed another god, which was something not a lot of people did – why didn’t they?

That seemed to the Hunter like something of an oversight, considering how awful most of the Great Ones seemed to be. Then again, maybe there were more nice ones, like Ebrietas, and the ones that weren’t so pleasant were just a few of many, rather than just the first few to step up and be put down. Perhaps the gods that were fool enough to fall upon her sword were simply exceptionally stupid, malicious, or both?

Maria patted Ophelia’s head, ruffling her silver hair fondly.

Ophelia hummed happily and leaned into the dashing swordswoman’s touch.

Wine did strange things to her.

Put her in a calmer state of mind – not universally useful, but the occasional foray had thus far proven beneficial. Helped thoughts that wouldn’t normally arise get their chance to say hello.

“Maria,” said the Dreamer, “I think I must be a homosexual.”

The Lady of the Astral Clocktower blinked at her. Once, twice. “Ophelia, dearest… did you not realize you were a lesbian?”

The taller woman was drinking at about the same pace, but the Hunter was quite a bit smaller, and still new to the world of alcohol. That is to say, two and a half glasses of wine were enough to have a remarkable effect on Ophelia, whereas Maria was quite alright.

“I suppose I hadn’t the time to stop and think about it. What with all the...” She made a broad, vague gesture, and pantomimed a creeping beast. “… _bloodletting_ ,” she said, enunciating the word carefully, as though she found all that Hunting business rather distasteful, really.

“Do you disdain the Hunt, Little One?”

Ophelia thought about that. Her thoughts were a little fuzzy, but they still worked, probably. “No,” she answered. “My blade undoes the wicked, and I bring cleansing flame to Yharnam. I simply struggle to sum it up in so few words – in the wrong company, too many might horrify, or overglorify. It is slaugher and butchery and brutality; it is darkness and isolation and silence; it is a cycle of life, bloodshed, and death. All of these are terrible subjects to broach in polite company.”

She downed the rest of her glass.

Realized she’d been away enough that her hair didn’t smell like lumenflowers anymore.

“Do you think the gods envy us, Maria?”

Maria, pouring each of them another glass, cocked her head. “Would they even know to?”

Both of them pondered that, for a time.

“No,” Ophelia finally answered. “Whether Ebrietas is the exception or the norm, I know not, but those who differ from her… Amygdalae seem to regard us as curious little creatures, worth picking up and playing with when not considered a proper threat. The… Big Blue Boy-”

“The one you fought before Ebrietas, in the gardens? Like the Failures, but less of a failure?”

“The very same, dear.” Ophe took another sip of wine. “The ‘Celestial Emissary’, according to my Messengers. He was Kin, like Rom – once Human, I think. There wasn’t much to him, mentally, as far as I could tell. If there was, it must have been childish at most-- which, I suppose, would make an awful lot of sense, wouldn’t it?”

Maria nodded somberly.

“Rom… I still don’t know if she was helping us or helping the bastards at Mensis. Like Ebrietas, though, she didn’t attack me on sight, even though I had to slay her to move forward in my Hunt.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I suppose that means she was probably helping? Perhaps I’d just like to think the best. Regardless, Amygdala is the only True Great One I’ve encountered thus far – aside from the Orphan and Kos herself, of course. He, the Orphan, the Failures, and the Emissary all attacked me on sight, though Orphan may be a special case, for obvious reasons. Ebrietas is Kin, I think, and a wonderful person, insightful and kind. And Rom, I never thought to speak with.”

_Perhaps things could have been different, had they spoken._

“What of the corpse monster?”

“The One Reborn? Similar story. If it was intelligent, then it wasn’t especially so.” She thought for a moment. “It had bone spurs protruding from its forearms, just before the elbow. The Orphan had similar structures, and I’ve seen them a few times elsewhere, too, I think.”

“Meaning it was at least partially successful in its ascension?”

“Indeed.”

A quiet followed that thought, for a time. The two women simply enjoying the drinks and the company.

Wiggles and Legs had been given a little dish of the ambrosia as well. Wiggles in particular had contributed to the battle with the Orphan – her ability to partially summon good Ebrietas in a rush of tentacles was valuable in opening foes for visceral ripostes, and while she hadn’t seen as much use as Ophelia’s trusty old pistol, the Hunter had made her appreciation known.

“When we first met, you told me that _‘A corpse should be left well alone.’_ I took that to mean- I took it as an expression of… well, you know.” Ophelia frowned. Reached across the little table to rest her hand on Maria’s. “It was, I think, but you meant Kos, too, didn’t you?”

Maria averted her eyes, but only briefly – soon, Ophelia was looking into those striking silver orbs, getting lost in their depths. “It was a lesson I will not soon forget.”

The tightening in Ophelia’s throat limited her response to a mournful look, and she blinked away tears. Maria smiled softly and shifted her hand under Ophe’s, lacing their fingers together, just as they’d later intertwine on a larger scale.

“Little One, I cannot pretend that this relationship of ours has miraculously relieved me of my burdens and soothed my every pain.” The quirking of her lips turned playful, then, and something danced in her eyes. “But I would be lying if ever I said that it did not help. That _you_ did not help.”

Tears dribbled down pale-freckled cheeks as the kind Hunter wept.

She’d return to Ebrietas and the Altar and get the ritual underway. Maria would see the waking world again, come hell or high water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT TIME: Arianna's Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Very Bad Day
> 
> That's a joke. I think? Probably a joke.  
> I might open the next bit with some Yharnam Girl PoV or something similar.  
> I haven't been to Oedon Chapel in awhile, in-game or in-narrative.


End file.
